I don't agree with the "socialist loser" bit; but here are just some of the ways the proposed approach fails, based on things we have already tried:

People don't like paying rent for property other people own. That doesn't just apply to small-time owners, it applies to the Government, the Property Managers, Big Brother, or whomever else is the owner instead of the occupier. This will be seen as no different to renting.

You might think that the above problem will be lessened if the occupier either: 1) pays less rent, or 2) has some say in the governing body. This won't happen. Public housing residents in Australia pay less rent; they still hate it (for the most part). Giving people a say in the governing body will be seen as a chore, not a benefit.

Property that somebody else owns are regularly treated like crap because the occupiers don't care; it's someone else's problem. (Owner-occupiers will also treat their own property like crap; but not as commonly.) Apartment buildings with high rental rates frequently have issues with bad-behaving residents actually damaging the property. The renters don't care; if they damage the place to the point where even they don't find it liveable, they'll just move. Public housing has similar problems. The government body responsible has to fix any damage; so residents will deliberately break things and just call to get it fixed. If there are punitive measures; they'll say it was an accident (and there's no contrary proof...).

The real solution to housing affordability is to reduce demand or increase supply. For example, you could: discourage investor ownership, or do what a number of developers here did accidentally: build "too many" new properties.

All of that said, public housing has a number of benefits in addition to its problems. I'm not advocating getting rid of it.

I read your link. It says the Uyghurs are reacting to oppression from the Chinese government.

But don't let your own facts get in the way of your argument.

I know people who do carry Android and iOS devices; specifically chosen so that they can benefit from both. However, those people all have a specific use-case: they have a work phone and a personal phone. And most of the people I know with a work and personal number opt for a dual-sim phone instead. Even if they'd generally prefer iOS; they'd rather have a single Android device than multiple devices. With a couple of exceptions, only people whose work mandates single-sim Apple devices for the work number carry two phones. (Two or three have opted for an Apple or Android work phone to have something from the other camp.)

The reasons not to carry multiple devices are many and varied; and almost always outweigh the benefits of having multiple devices. You only need one to fulfil the primary purpose of the device (mobile communication); and exclusivity is lower, so it's easier to live without certain apps than to carry a second device. Contrast that with game consoles; where the primary purpose is the games, and weight/number of the devices is rarely an issue.

As for Purism releasing their own phone; are you expecting people to carry that around separately to use VPN software? In that case, Purism would do better to release a portable hotspot with built in VPN. And that probably is a viable option. But people would ask, "Why do I need to carry two device. Why can't I just run a software VPN on my phone, like on Android."

Nobody stopped Microsoft from doing that... except the fact that being a late-comer to that market was a significant barrier to entry. If Purism releases a phone and, all else being equal, their only differentiation is that you can run their VPN on their phones, they aren't going to sell many. The cost of switching to a new phone is too high for most people.

There's nothing stopping Apple releasing an app store for Android. You can't say the same about the Play Store on iOS.

Next thief: "Give us your phone AND your watch!"

Hyandai quality, BMW price.

I think I wasn't clear enough. Let me expand my point.

1. There needs to be a value assessment about the US converting to metric: it is a substantial expense. And this is something the US needs to do; not other people on their behalf.

2. Everybody else has already done it or is doing it. Which means the cost, while substantial, has been considered worth it everywhere outside of America. America isn't the first country to consider converting to metric. It's not the largest, either (by population or area). Each conversion is a unique proposition, though. But saying "it'll be expensive" might be seen as a weak argument by people in countries which have already done it. When I compared the conversion to Sweden changing their driving side, I mentioned that it would have been harder for them to do the same thing today. It's possible that given the size of the US, they've waited too long and it's become too hard. (I doubt it, though. But that's not for me to say.)

3. My previous point makes your point about a new Unified System not a good analogy. We already have an (almost) unified system. (It's not called Système International for the LOLs.) So it's a completely different question asking "Would you convert from an non-unified system to the only unified system?" than "Would you convert to a second unified system?". The first question is asking about converting to get something of an advantage (a unified system). The second is asking about conversion for literally no advantage (as you stated).

4. In case I've not been clear; I'm not advocating that the US should convert. (I think they should, but it's not my choice.) If they do choose to convert, it's their choice how they implement this. Conversion doesn't have to happen overnight. Conversion doesn't have to completely eradicate the old system. The UK is supposedly metric, but they still use miles and Fahrenheit. If that's the yard-stick, conversion for the US might be as simple as saying "We're metric now."

5. This was what I was trying to communicate. The people who don't want to change aren't going to bring it up. The people who have completed the change, and see someone else holding-out are more likely to. Again, my point wasn't that the US must convert; but that it should be understandable that others might take issue with the fact that they haven't.

6. No, I'm contradicting your assertion that "Americans" can use metric by pointing out that some Americans clearly can't. (I did explicitly acknowledge that those who can't don't represent all Americans.)

Which is why you specify your weight in pound-force (lbf) instead of pound-mass (lb), right?

I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Yes, both metric and imperial measurements are somewhat arbitrary. But that's not what people are complaining about.

Standardising what side of the road your country drives on makes sense: you can drive without having to worry about which side the oncoming car is intending to pass you on. But forcing every country to use the same standard currently doesn't make sense; because the number of border crossings is minimal, so the cost of changing a country's standard is higher than the cost of dealing with the differences. But that may change in the future. Sweden changed driving sides to match their neighbours in the 60s. It was unpopular, possibly not seen as necessary at the time. But as it turned out it was well timed: changes in the way roads are made are now tied to the driving side; meaning it would be much harder to convert today.

Standardising what measuring units you use makes sense: you can communicate measurements without writing something like "longer than two American football fields end to end". But does every country using the same standard make sense? In the past, the situation was the same as what side you drive on. But with the internet, suddenly the borders are almost completely gone. (There are still language borders, unfortunately; but those are breaking down to some extent.) Now it is common to come across material that does not originate from your country. Which means that if another country uses a different standard, you need to either convert to the system you know, or know multiple systems. This has a cost - it may be small, but it's present. And it might seem insignificant, but it adds up. What seems insignificant to someone who deals mostly with others who use the same system might seem like a big deal to someone who deals mostly with those of a different system.

Fortunately, for the most part, there are only two systems in common use: metric and imperial. Both are fit for purpose (although, arguably one is better than the other; which one depends on who you ask). But because there are two systems, there is still conversion required when information crosses borders. And that conversion has a cost. And the fact of the matter is that this favourable position (only two systems to worry about) came about because most of the world has put the effort in to standardise, with only one country is holding out. (Liberia and Myanmar, often claimed to be hold outs, are actually in the process of converting. Conversely, the UK, often claimed to have converted, is also still in the process.) Everyone else has ripped off the band-aid (or is in the process) and eliminated the conversion cost amongst themselves.

Now, who is more likely to claim that having two systems is a problem? People from the one country holding out? Or the people from countries who have put in the effort to standardise? Who is more likely to want to drive on the left? The people of Sweden before the change-over? Or the people of Sweden after (particularly post Schengen)?

Of course some of you can. But there are a significant number of noisy idiots who go overseas and complain to the hotel staff that the TV weather services don't give the temperature in Fahrenheit.

TLDR; neither system is (inarguably) better than the other, but having one system is better than having two.

50% more than $632 is 632 x 1.5 = 948

There's a difference between "it's not made to be able to do that" and "it's made to not be able to do that".

Windows won't run any iOS app. It's not made to be able to do that. It doesn't have the required libraries, for a start.

iOS won't run an unapproved iOS app. It is made to not be able to do that. It has everything that is required to run the software, but it also has code to check that the software is signed with a valid certificate, and refuse to run it if that condition isn't met.

I read the full articles linked from that post. If the writer had wanted to be less disingenuous he could have chosen this quote from the BBC "We got the story generally right, but on one detail I and others conveyed the wrong impression. There was no massacre on Tiananmen Square." Or perhaps they could have chosen this one from the CBS article: "But there's no question many people were killed by the army that night around Tiananmen Square, and on the way to it ...". The fact remains that those single-sentence quotes don't even remotely convey what the articles they are taken from are saying.

I tried hard to present an unbiased summary of the article. But the further I went into it, the harder I found that to be. Seriously, how can someone state, "the army didn't bring weapons; and look, the protesters burnt their tanks!" and expect to be taken seriously?

And for the record, I'm perfectly open to being wrong. I wasn't there. How should I know what happened, except by what I'm told? If I am forced to choose, I'll go with the people who can at least back up what they say coherently.

For those who don't want to read the article, here is a summary:

• No massacre happened in the square itself. Evidence: single-sentence quotes from major news sources.
• There was violence and killing. Possibly half of the 200-300 dead were soldiers. Evidence: a link to another blog which does not cite sources.
• Protesters were responsible for violence. Evidence: a small number of photos.
• Soldiers were unarmed in the square. Evidence: 2 photos. Counter evidence is also present: photos showing tanks.
• Foreign interference was responsible for organisation anti-government action. No evidence is provided.
• There were several types of protesters present (no evidence provided for any of these):
• * People just mourning the death of Hu Yaobang
• * People just wanting to socialise
• * Poor people (victims of China's liberalisation, of course)
• * Idealists
• * Very naughty people
• * Provocateurs
• The very naughty people wanted the Chinese government to massacre people. Evidence: someone quoted as saying "we expected a massacre."
• When the massacre didn't happen; people made it up. (No evidence provided.)
• All these lies are just another example of bad things in China only happen because of Western countries' interferance. (No evidence provided.)
• China should reform; but only as it wants to. And how great is China! Evidence: link to another blog.
• Update: Look at how bad America is! Their government hasn't killed anyone in the BLM protests... yet! Evidence: video of American protester being moved from in front of a SWAT van by tear gas.

--

Other gems from this blog:

• Sure, some non-Han-Chinese looking Xinjing residents are being put in education centres. But they're potential terrorists; and look at these nice, Han-Chinese looking Xinjing residents!
• India is the US's pawn against China.
• India needs China's help.
• America isn't all that great.

This is like saying "Google translate is good at doing English to French; therefore it should also be good at doing English to Chinese (it's really not, unless you think "Carefully slide" is an adequate translation of "Caution: slippery"). English to French is easy; they're part of the same language family. English to Chinese is hard. Intel's RISC is entirely designed to run x86; everything in the CISC instruction set maps to minimal numbers of instructions in the RISC set. ARM is not designed to run x86; any direct mappings are simply good luck, missed mappings could be expensive.

Intel decides what is best for an average PC because that's how you optimise for a use-case you can't possibly nail-down; you know, like people using their computers for a wide variety of different tasks. If Apple wants their CPU to have anything resembling good performance for most people, that's what they'll do too.

I have no doubt that Apple will do something resembling this. That's because literally everyone does this. Have you never heard of a Graphics Card? Every motherboard has "custom silicon for audio" built into it. That used to be separate, but it got so trivial and cheap that they give it away. And CPUs have a low power mode suitable for checking internet sources, such as email servers; no separate hardware required.

These chips won't beat out the flagship Intel CPUs. Throwing more of them at the problem won't help any more than having more cores helped AMD in the last few years (they've since caught up by boosting the single-thread performance). What's more, with separate chips all your power efficiency is out the window, and with that thermal throttling problems (the bane of Apple's designs) rear their ugly head yet again.