There are a couple of manufacturers who make 'USB condoms' - something that negotiates the charging rate on the data lines but only passes through the power lines.

I've used these (no affiliation, just a customer).

Perhaps you should have paid more attention when they were defining 'irony' in class.

Addressing the poverty tends to do that, but then that becomes a wider problem and that makes it harder to dismiss the poor with a 'change your culture' judgement.

Here's a link to a wikipedia article that sumamrises a meta study that looks at correlations of criminal behaviour, which I'm using as a proxy for your 'horrific culture'.

I note the following, referring to socioeconomic status - "Crime rates and inequality are positively correlated within countries and, particularly, between countries, and this correlation reflects causation from inequality to crime rates, even after controlling for other crime determinants."

The loony left are every bit as bad as the nutjobs on the right. Neither are representative of the majority of people who lean or identify in either direction, but they make convenient punching bags for when people prefer simplistic answers that feed their preconceptions and prejudices. Please, be better than that.

or firehawks (there's something like 5 species of Australian raptor that spreads fire by carrying burning debris past firebreaks as part of a pack hunting strategy. Not news to the Indigenous population, but it's taken a while for the rest of us to pay attention)

I'm going to presume perfect technology to claim/reclaim non-arable land.

I'm going to assume we move all major population centers off the arable land most now sit on.

With these, and similar assumptions, is arable land infinite or finite?

With our current ad-hoc and fairly ineffective management of resources and use of productive land, we've reached limits. We can, with better management, innovation and the glorious hand of the free-market find ways to increase these limits. Maybe even considerably.

Before we reach these 'harder' limits, maybe it's still useful to look at regulating use while we have some capacity to get that right.

I put it to you that this is what was implied by the GP you you so blithely 'corrected'.

How did you experience her behaviour, or hear about her 'deplorables' comment? Was it in person, or was it presented through some reportage?
Where those reporting that behaviour doing so because they noted an uptick in interest from pieces like that? Did they remain 'topical' for longer as a result of manipulation of systems used to judge 'newsworthiness'?

More, it's easier to smear someone than to persuade that someone is worthwhile. Persuading someone to vote for Trump is difficult. Making Hillary a less appealing candidate is easier (and contrariwise - this isn't a comment on the relative worth of either candidate, just the relative ease of shifting opinion).

Influence doesn't work by persuading one individual at a time to change their mind. It's a subtle process that plays numbers, tips balances and frames discourse. If you can add some phrases and soundbites that the already persuaded can use to shut down criticism, so much the better.

This is an argument from incredulity. No one is claiming that they have the power to sway every vote. The argument is that they made an attempt to sway the vote. The degree to which this could be or was successful is another matter entirely, but the way it would work is certainly not your strawman.

Here's a hint for you. You should actually read history and not quote your favourite blog.

The Nazis arose out of a period with strong socialist movements. They drew, in their earliest days on some similar populations. The 'Socialist' in their name was partly historic and partly an appeal to sentiment. If you read Hitler's thoughts on socialism you'll find it very clear that late/pre-war nazisim was 'socialist' in name only.

Kind of like the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea.

There's no way I can parse that that makes sense. Strictly, capitalism is defined by private individuals owning/controlling the means of manufacture (trade/profit).
I cannot understand where, in that, generosity fits. In as much as capitalism is often associated with some form of free market it's competitive. Still not generous. Please, can you clarify?

Language is important. You call it 'charity' when you describe taxes being used for people other than those that paid them. The problem with a strictly personal and competitive system is that there are numerous cases where individuals are bad at making rational decisions (cognitive biases like discounting future negatives) or where individuals, acting rationally, can cause themselves harm that could be avoided by acting in concert (tragedy of the commons). There are economies of scale that can be achieved where people contribute to a pool and a centralised system provides services or utilities where profit based competition would degrade service (healthcare, utilities) and that's before we look at social contracts and whether being born and raised in a country whose previous generations have provided you with peace, prosperity, education and health obligates you to at least leave the system no worse for your participation.

Call that 'charity' if you will, but you're being either obtuse or misleading.

'Socialism', in its pure form is just as toxic as 'capitalism'. Both need to be regulated and restricted, those countries with the longest history of high standards of living for most of the population have a mix of socialist policies along side of capitalism.

Noting that socialism fails at extremum is trivial. Your inability to consider anything less than 'pure' socialism is a kind of blindness that I can only presume is some relic of the US school system.

You list 4. but how is a military normally a 'free market' item? If you include it, what about other things like infrastructure and utilities? Surely they are better handled by some form of co-operative or government?

What about regulation of shared resources to avoid tragedy of the commons (so indirect involvement in markets via environmental protection for eg)?
And here I'm not just talking about things that cause direct health impact, but indirect problems like overgrazing common fields or destroying parkland.

If the latter, then why not legislation that seeks to limit the waste inherent in manufacture of unrepairable products.

The idealised free market doesn't work well for long term costs. We have cognitive biases that discount long term costs vs short term gains. This is an area where an individual, with multiple pressures for limited expenditure may choose a cheaper, non-repairable product because the cost to them is only going to be realised over a term that makes it hard to properly assess on a personal level, but which is distinct at a social or governmental level.

What did you buy?

Just the item, or should there exist an obligation by the manufacturer to provide information to assist others in repairing the device they sold? Like specifications, data sheets, codes etc.

This kind of circles back to some of the original reasons for encouraging patents - so that inventions didn't remain a mystery when the inventor died, but that their ideas could go on to be developed. In exchange, they are granted a limited period to monopolise that invention or idea and are protected by law.

This attempt to balance the obligations and rights of a manufacturer so that they and the market they wish to sell to both benefit is what this sort of thing is about.

One of the justifications for the claim that the economy is growing is the number of people employed - but the unemployment rate isn't the best measure, especially on its own. The participation rate for the US has been pretty much flat at about 62-63% for the last four years, and shows a steady decline from 2008 where it was 66%. That's still only looking at people who are actively seeking work. Those who have given up aren't counted, just as those who haven't looked for work in the last 4 weeks are 'unemployed'.

These are not the graphs of an economy in growth. That's mostly fallout from the GFC and finger pointing to either Republicans or Democrats misses the point. There's a problem. It needs work to fix it.

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/...

I'm not addressing your "liberal is this; liberal is that" - I'm not from the US and the identity politics that are dividing people who would otherwise have enough in common to reach a useful compromise is deeply distressing.

That a large section of the population feels betrayed and disenfranchised is clear. That their elected representatives are not representing their interests is also clear (with a few, often independent, exceptions). Neither party has the interests of the majority of people - both court the wealthy. Trump's election is a clear indication of this, but neither party seems likely to do anything different. Why should they? They aren't being abandoned by their supporters. Instead, they point their people at the other and demonise them. Republicans blame Democrats; Democrats Republicans. Both parties have loony fringes that are easy to exaggerate and, it seems, easy to convince their supporters are the 'true' face of the 'opposition'.

I've friends who are ex-pat US. They describe the US system of government as one of compromise, with moderates from either of the major parties finding ways to bridge the gap to get things done. The current 'spoiling' play that's started at the highest levels and is being picked up by followers and supporters highlights the weakness of the US 'first past the post' two party system.

Trump isn't likely to be the answer. The 'answer' is going to be a moderate who can convince others to join them in working on a solution. Could be a republican or a democrat, or some third party. Things might need to get worse before they get better.

The GP stated that "you can't even put full-frame lenses on crop-frame cameras" and appeared to be confusing the limitations of Canon's EF-S vs EF mount.

My comments were addressing that and I mentioned 1987 to try to be specific about what I was referring to. If you read that as a contradiction, I apologise for not being clearer, but suggest as well that you consider the context of my statements.

Canon's switch to the EF mount allowed them to move away from mechanical focus and concentrate on a completely electrical interface between body and lens. This gave them a significant advantage in the speed of their auto focus, which is why they captured the sports and (to a lesser extent) nature market in the early 90s and which gave them a significant lead in the early DSLR field.

Nikon AF lenses rely on the body having a focus motor. Most do, but the smaller, lighter Nikon bodies do not and therefore while the AF lenses work, but don't have auto focus. AF-S and AF-P2 have focus motors built in and will work on either bodies that have a focus motor, or newer, lighter bodies that do not. So, while all AF type lenses will fit the Nikon body, some combinations will not have Auto Focus (usually older lenses with newer, lighter bodies). More, when canon went from FD to EF, they sold an adapter to allow older glass to be used with the newer mount. It wasn't ideal, but nor was it 'cannot use'.

So no, Nikon isn't UNIX. They've hacked on their original mount, produced models that aren't completely backward compatible but are only 'mostly' so and were slowed by their need to continue to support their large customer base. Like Microsoft (but done 'right', perhaps). Canon made a clean break with their older tech to implement something new that gave them some significant advantages in the short term. More like Apple.

ref: http://www.nikon.com.au/en_AU/...

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Caveat - I'm not and have never been a photographer, but I've had friends and partners who were and have sat in on enough discussions, conversations and comparisons to have an interest in the technologies and processes. The competition between these two companies has been nothing but beneficial for customers.

I think you mean that there are some lenses made specifically for their crop-sensor line (EF-S) that can't be used on full-frame cameras. You can certainly use any FF Canon lens on a crop body. Why not take advantage of the different format to offer people more choice? EF-S lenses are often cheaper than comparable EF lenses, just as the crop bodies are cheaper than the full frame counterparts

The Canon EF mount goes back to 1987, not as impressive as Nikon's 1959 but not insignificant.

In some ways it's akin to the Apple/OSX and Microsoft/Windows decisions. You can maintain backward compatibility, but at the cost of supporting old systems and standards, or you can make a clean break to allow a better implementation of current technology at the cost of limited backward support via adapters.

Mr Unsworth made the same assumptions you've made, but was under considerably more pressure and without the access to hindsight. His behaviour is understandable. Yours less so.

I've provided links that outline an alternate narrative from before the twitter comments of Musk made the whole thing a valuable news article. Downthread there's another.

I'm not defending Musk's behaviour - it's terrible, but it's not as terrible as people claim - but that doesn't sell as many stories.

No dispute. I think Musk's conduct was appalling, but the reportage of the incident isn't helping anyone.

How cute. The argument from ignorance. Sorry sweety, that's not how the burden of proof works.

You made the claim. Proof's on you

Indeed. Trolling these days has really hit an all time low.