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Comment Re:Affordability (Score 1) 215

"They've convinced you "
My old phone was a $240 one, 6 years ago. The one before was also a $200-$300 phone, 10 or 12 years ago. My current one is a (special price) $150 budget.
It has a 3-hours battery for gaming, or 5-6 hours for Waze with the screen on.
It is just about unusable in strong sunlight, but very usable in the shade (IPS screen).
My wife had a Samsung AMOLED with no burn-in after some 5 years.

Also, there are companies that basically buy flagship phones to lower their profit. A flagship phone would be basically free for them (within some limits).

I am happy that the flagship technology of the $1000 flagships of 5 years ago is in the "mid market" phones.

Comment Re:Can we just stop making glass backs (Score 1) 215

My wife had cracked the screen on her phone. Repairs were close to $100, on a low-budget phone (nice screen but very little flash memory, and an Android version that allowed only some application to be moved to SD-Card). Repair was hardly worth it, as I had to free some more storage space monthly.

Comment Re:Affordability (Score 1) 215

A better screen (possibly AMOLED instead of IPS).
Higher backlight intensity that can make the phone usable outside.
A larger screen.
A larger battery for those that use their phones heavily.
If you're into taking pictures, somewhat better image quality in any case - and much better image quality in some cases.
If you're into filming, better movie quality.
Maybe stereo sound.
Some water resistance.
A screen that won't scratch so easily.
If you are into looks, the flagship phones have "premium" materials.
Higher CPU and graphic performance, if you are into games (or maybe some other applications that should belong to computers)
Bragging rights.

It might be that none of those above advantages mean anything to you, or that you would only appreciate some of them.
Yet, for many paying $1000 more for a flagship phone ($1200+) is worth it. And for many more, paying for a high-budget one at $400-600 is also worth it.

Comment Re:The big IF (Score 1) 87

"then this Bitcoin investment could be what propels El Salvador into the G20"
G20 is usually seen as economic power. Switzerland has a lot of money (other people money in their bank system) but that does not make it an economic powerhouse.
Also, if Elon Musk (>240 billion USD) moves (with everything he owns) into Fiji (with a country wealth of 9 billion USD), he won't magically move Fiji from position 140 in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., up there with Slovakia, Luxembourg, Algeria, Argentina, twice the wealth of Belarus (though that's debatable).
With the war-fueled destruction happening, Fiji plus Elon Musk would have more wealth than Ukraine (450 billion USD in 2021), though the truth of the matter should be different.

Comment Re:Unrealized Losses... (Score 1) 87

9% guaranteed return over 5 years is about 55%, which is quite a bit less than what Bitcoin managed over the past 5 years (31,000 in May 2022 versus 537 in May 2016, a 60x increase).
If we were to take the best 5 years of Bitcoin, from March 2016 to March 2021, it goes from 414 to 58,700 - a 141x increase. Or maybe from Oct 2016 to Oct 2021 - 693 to 61,300 is a 88x increase.

Plenty of reasons (I mean excuses) to choose Bitcoin over the 9% guaranteed.

Comment Re:Right wing censors the most (Score 2) 405

"Trump's numerous and well-documented failures do not justify Twitter's judgment failure in censoring a sitting president"
Putin's numerous and well-documented failures do not justify censoring a sitting president? What about Kim Jong Un? The former Pol Pot and Stalin?
Or maybe even Hitler, even though he wasn't actually president but basically a prime-minister instead.

Comment Re:Error in summary (Score 2) 96

L2 is unstable in "close" - "far" localization, but is stable in the other two axes. It stays "closer" to Earth than L2, and drifts "close" to Earth. The boosts send it back in the "almost L2 but on Earth side" position.
If it goes "past" L2, all is lost - it can only boost on the face without the telescope, and it can't turn towards Sun for reasons of burning the infrared detectors.

Comment Re:A fantastic achievement (Score 2) 96

The "solar" side of JWST reaches around up to 20 degrees Celsius (some 300 Kelvin, or - lets call it 70 Fahrenheit.
The "normal" infrared sensors should work at around 50 Kelvin (lets call it -220 Celsius). You can get there by keeping it in the shade of the multiple layer, tennis-court sized parasol.
The "cold" "deep infrared" sensor must be cooled down even more, so it has a refrigeration system.

Now, the issue with these is that - basically - once they "look" into the Sun, they're burnt.
So, JWST must stay "back (parasol) to the Sun" for its entire useful life. And a Lagrange point allows it to stay "locked" to Earth - so it needs to communicate only 1.5 million kilometers away.
We could put JWST on Lagrange L4 or L5, but that is at 1AU (150 million kilometers away), 100 times farther away (so we will get 1/10,000 of signal strength).

L2 is stable as in "it rotates around the Sun with the same speed as Earth, and it will go "pendulum-like" with changes in "forward", "back", "left" or "right" position. Yet, L2 is unstable in "closer/farther" direction - if it goes past L2 its trajectory will diverge away from Earth, and if it goes closer its trajectory will converge towards Earth (in the first phase). So, JWST stays "just on the Earth side of L2" and it will "rocket" back into "almost L2" when a large enough deviation happens. As everything else is electrically powered, when the rocket fuel dries up, JWST will drift away from L2.

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