Yep. Full of curious word choices intended for dumb readers.

Also unaddressed is the nominal two days in jail. Two days for two counts of what I'm guessing is the same conduct: ie for two tax returns he had a bank account in China that he didn't list. Two days in jail implies the court decided on one day per offence.

This has the hallmarks of one of those get-him-anyway-you-can cases which wouldn't happen outside of political instructions.

Glorified pattern matching should be able to crack all languages.

Yep. Any IT guy worth his salt would spot that and conclude that the process failed long before it reached the USB.

I'm guessing the IT contractor is busy inventing a bullshit excuse. I don't know the specific excuse, but I guarantee it'll have one or more of these words: hackers or China or Russia or dark net.

The huge advantage of solar in Africa is that it doesn't require extensive infrastructure. Same goes for the introduction of cell towers removing the need for networks of poles and wires.

Solar also greatly improves the balance of payment problems that plague Africa because every panel and every EV imported permanently reduces the unending monthly need to import fuel paid for in USD. Solar is the energy equivalent of compounding interest.

* Except for the encryption keys which were all issued by the US.

Yep, code for "We've tapped out private money, now we need National Security money".

So, the US has been using its own rule set, but nevertheless the failure to agree on an international rule set is solely the fault of those quarrelsome East Asians.

We're losing the game we created, so we're creating a new league where we can again be the winners.

Most of these are from the new five year plan's industry policy chapter:

1. Quantum Computing,
2. Bio-Manufacturing,
3. Hydrogen sourced energy,
4. Nuclear Fusion,
5. Brain Computer Interconnect,
6. Embodied AI, and
7. 6G Telecommunications.

Priority industries are supported by all levels and departments of government during their development and growth phases. Businesses also invest in the new industries in the knowledge that the policies will almost certainly remain unchanged for the duration of the plan. While nominally labeled five years plans, individual projects may be planned to run for 5, 10, 15 years or longer.

Note that a lot of the tech in the list envisages a near future saturated with advanced AI and robotics.

Swift allows emojis as valid var, const and func names. And a few weeks ago there was a Slashdot (I think) story about AI "written" code that had been pasted in to a programme. The return codes were emojis - sad face for error etc.

I think it's the other way around. Communism is the way to provide life essentials to the poverty stricken masses. The economic surplus gained by those masses is in turn exchanged for non-essential goods produced within the capitalist system. That's pretty much the definition of the "Chinese Characteristics" part of the "Communism with Chinese Characteristics" model.

Even Lenin had a similar idea way back in the day - uplift the masses to reach a tipping point, but then WW2 happened and after its victory the Soviet Union had to start from scratch and couldn't ever get to the tipping point.

I think you misunderstand - it's the electricity you need, not the vessel that stores it. What if you take that to the next level and buy the car without the large upfront cost of buying a battery, but instead just borrow a battery from an electricity company. Then you just buy the electricity whenever you need it by swapping a discharged battery for a charged battery.

The idea is to make driving away with a fully charged battery the speed equivalent to filling your tank and just as convenient as swapping out your empty BBQ gas bottle for a full one. Check out YouTube for videos of drive-thru swap stations that do the swap in under five minutes.

Yep, just training soldiers to subconsciously think they can take a few hits and just respawn.

Madness.

Not to mention that a few years ago Ford closed all its South American production lines and became an importer of Fords. At the same time Chinese companies opened up new production lines in South America - most recently a BYD EV line.

Exactly. This is the perfect example.

Over the next decade, cheap solar + cell network + cheap banking will rapidly increase the quality of life for billions of people.