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Comment Re:according to google.... (Score 1) 137

Road maintenance isn't the only cost. Automobiles have a lot of externalized costs that are bared by the government besides just building roads. You need to constantly be building out new cities with new infrastructure in order to make room for cars and a car centric society.

You could tax the car companies themselves to pay for it but good luck with that. Realistically if you have the political power to do something like that you probably wouldn't have a car centric society that shifts billions of dollars of cost on to consumers.

Submission + - As US Hunger Rises, Food Waste is Increasing (theconversation.com)

oumuamua writes: New policies in Trump’s second term have helped create huge food loss even as hunger grew. Aggressive immigration raids and deportations scared workers away from fields and plants, leaving crops unharvested. Cuts and shutdowns at aid agencies meant pallets of ready-to-eat emergency food expired in warehouses instead of reaching people who needed it. Tariffs disrupted soybean markets and left producers with mountains of unsold crops. Cuts to disaster recovery, food-safety staff and a program that linked schools and food banks to local farmers removed outlets and protections that keep food from being wasted. A fall 2025 government shutdown also disrupted SNAP benefits for weeks and made it harder for people and grocers to move food.

The fall 2025 government shutdown left the government’s major food aid program, SNAP, in limbo for weeks, derailing communities’ ability to meet their basic needs. Grocers, who benefit substantially from SNAP funds, announced discounts for SNAP recipients – to help them afford food and to keep food supplies moving before they rotted. The Department of Agriculture ordered them not to, saying SNAP customers must pay the same prices as other customers.

The scale is stark. About 47 million Americans lack enough food while roughly 40 percent of U.S. food is wasted each year, which equals about 120 billion meals and releases more than 4 million metric tons of methane. The article argues that pursuing “efficiency” through enforcement and budget cuts has, paradoxically, increased waste and worsened food insecurity.

Submission + - Australia spent $62 million to update their weather web site and made it worse (bbc.com)

quonset writes: Australia last updated their weather site a decade ago. In October, during one of the hottest days of the year, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) revealed its new web site and was immediately castigated for doing so. Complaints ranged from a confusing layout to not being able to find information. Farmers were particularly incensed when they found out they could no longer input GPS coordinates to find forecasts for a specific location. When it was revealed the cost of this update was A$96.5 million ($62.3 million), 20 times the original cost estimate, the temperature got even hotter.

With more than 2.6 billion views a year, Bom tried to explain that the site's refresh — prompted by a major cybersecurity breach in 2015 — was aimed at improving stability, security and accessibility. It did little to satisfy the public.

Some frustrated users turned to humour: "As much as I love a good game of hide and seek, can you tell us where you're hiding synoptic charts or drop some clues?"

Malcolm Taylor, an agronomist in Victoria, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the redesign was a complete disaster.

"I'm the person who needs it and it's not giving me the information I need," the plant and soil scientist said.

As psychologist and neuroscientist Joel Pearson put it, "First you violate expectations by making something worse, then you compound the injury by revealing the violation was both expensive and avoidable. It's the government IT project equivalent of ordering a renovation, discovering the contractor has made your house less functional, and then learning they charged you for a mansion."

Comment So I looked into it (Score 1) 45

The examples I can find where someone actually got in trouble were explicit calls to violence. The famous one is a guy who wrote for a British sitcom called Father Ted. He explicitly said that if you see a trans girl in a woman's bathroom you should punch them in the balls. The two that got actual jail time were inciting an attack on a hotel full of immigrants during riots. Even in America that's not legal we just very seldom enforce those laws.

The example in the article you linked to the police admitted they were wrong and paid the people in question 20,000 British pounds as compensation. In America the 20K would not have been worth it because every time you interact with police there's a high probability they are going to kill you. When police get something wrong in America the payout should probably be at least half a million to account for that. But as far as I know the cops in the UK don't just randomly murder people for shits and giggles like they do in United States.

I'm not saying that there isn't some abuse going on though. 12,000 arrests is insane.

But at the same time they're probably needs to be a middle ground between arresting 12,000 people and the rampant stochastic terrorism we've got going on here in the United States where we've got idiots running around killing people trying to start a race war.

Comment Re: Alibaba (Score 1) 31

Well, I'm about to find out if I need to do my first chargeback, I have a delayed response on a return authorization for where I was sent the wrong item. They advertised a different version. This might be confusing for them since the difference is small - yet critical. But there really should be no confusion because they advertised the other version both in the images and the product name/listing title.

Comment Re:About time (Score 1) 42

Used to be, but Trump has kinda ruined it for the rest of us. He complained that they were charging Americans more, so instead of reducing their prices, they just increased them everywhere else.

As an example, Mounjaro went from around £180 in the UK, to around £300.

Comment Re:Competition (Score 1) 89

I saw a YouTube video from a guy who bought a mini excavator from AliExpress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It's surprisingly good. Japanese Kubota engine, everything else looks decent quality, especially considering the incredibly low price. I've seen similar videos from other people who bought heavy machinery like farm equipment and lathes.

On the one hand it's a shame that our domestic manufacturing is finding it hard to compete. On the other, they aren't doing themselves any favours with things like DRM to stop you working on your own tools. The price competition is a good thing for consumers.

Comment Re:Competition (Score 1) 89

Take Germany luxury/performance cars, for example. The Chinese ones are every bit as luxury and well made, and often exceed them for performance. On top of that, the German manufacturers can't resist screwing their customers with bullshit like subscriptions for heated seats and no owner access to the engine bay.

Comment Re: Alibaba (Score 1) 31

I regularly buy from AliExpress. Their customer service isn't as good as Amazon's, but the prices are 1/10th of the Amazon ones so even though the odd things gets lost or is of poor quality, I'm still well up on what Amazon would have cost me.

Occasionally I need to do a credit card chargeback. Had to do that on a computer case that got damaged. For small stuff costing literal pennies I don't bother with the maybe 1 in 20 items that is lost or no good.

As you say, it's the same stuff they sell with a hefty mark-up on Amazon, and in every other shop.

Comment Re:This is a pessimistic take don't you think? (Score 1) 20

If chasing ratings is taken too far, you end up with Fox used to be, where shows would get cancelled a few episodes into their first season because they were not instant mega hits. Netflix is nearly as bad, cancelling stuff days after it premiers.

A lot of shows took a season or two to really find their feet. A lot of shows that struggled early on ended up doing very well in syndication, or started a long running franchise.

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