I guess that is the story. At the time I heard about it, I only "parsed" the headlines ... so it was not as bad as I thought, haha.

But still ridiculous, don't you think?

What is next, I practice Thai and write some notes in the curvy scribble, or worth I learn Myanmar - which actually has an indeed very strange script, inspired by moon phases - and get accused of doing black magic in an air plane.

And about that you are wrong.
Sorry ... why do not just google it?

Not really complicated.

And get some common sense, if corrosion would be an issue, no one would talk about building them. Oooops.

I just googled it, a photographer got killed - sad!

The NEO _IS_ built out of iPhone parts,
Unlikely. From where would they get the parts?

Everything from Apple is build on ARM SoC's.
The NEO most certainly has an Intel or similar processor.

Because my head phones have a 3.5 plug.

Stupid comment.

All my iPhones never lasted - with extremely sporadic usage - a day, or more than a day.

My old Android, with similar usage patterns, lasts nearly a week. My new Android sucks.

It even gets hot ... just when the hotspot is on. Not really sure where the power is going. Sometimes it lasts 1 or 2 days. Most of the time it is roughly 10h.

Keep in mind: all my phones are in flight mode over night till the first time I need them ... and the iPhone is dead when I go to bed. (iPhone SE ... from 2021 or so ...) It is dead from not being used at all in my bag. I mean: it runs some chat apps, and gets the notifications ... and that is it.

It does not provide any checks and balances.
As: it can not check anything.
Balance anything.
Do anything.

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

And, the citizens didn't put Trump/Vance in office... you can send thank you letters to the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is obliged to vote the way how the states won the election. There is nothing they can do about.

Child labour is a definition of what is a child. In South (East) Asia: schools are free. And Kids have mandatory school duty.

So, only dictatorships like Myanmar might have Child labour. How would that work in any other country? Oh, mother forgot to register the kid in a school? School forgot to inform the city, that a kid is not coming? City forgot to sent police to the mother?
There is a bus in the morning, full with kids, which does not go to school - but to a factory?

Sorry, there most certainly is child labour in African dictatorships, where kids are SLAVES. So call it slave work, that would fit better.

Fact is, your country is not doing any high tech anymore except a few niche companies.

I live mostly in SEA. Of course only Thailand and Laos ... there is no child labour. Kids are in school just like in any other country. If at all: then someone managed to get children as slaves, and that would obviously be a crime everyone involved would try to hide.

Solar panels etc. are build by robots. The labour cost of the people involved is absolutely not significant. Sure it hurts the bottom line, if you pay $100 million per year for labour, that would only be half or a quarter in another country ... but the remaining $20 billion costs dwarf that.

There is a story about a math teacher in a flight in the USA, he was taking notes, mostly equations while flying. His neighbour was a lady who could not read a thing of what he wrote. But panicked he would be terrorist.

Seriously: he is writing in a paper booklet, that made him a terrorist ...

For some odd reason the crew emergency landed the flight.

I guess with some google fu you find the story ... it was a few years ago, but not very long.

Well, there is still the likelihood that he named the thing long ago at home and simply forgot the name of the device when he put it into his bag.

so expensive stuff like solar panels and wind turbines aren't gonna have a long lifetime there.
Solar panels are not expensive
They are dirt cheap, since years.
If your country was not run by Yahoos, you had factories that chum them out and you would sell them in Africa, instead of China.
An 850W panel costs about THB1000, that is roughly $28.
A 4kW mini installation is 5 panels and roughly $125 - $135.

There are people who run DC appliances directly from the panels, no inverter or batteries involved. For example a pool pump.

Solar panels are expensive in your country, because:
1) they are shipped around half the planet - hint, oil costs
2) some moron thought it is smart to put a high import duty on them
3) there are probably a-hole rules how to set up a small plant

Many solar things are appliances ... for example a street light, with a square foot of solar on top and a battery. It is cheaper to set up than to pull extra power lines and have "normal" lights. Most modern lights are all LED ... so the power cost is insignificant, the battery has 30years warranty. Or the G5 repeaters in the village ... of course they are all Huwei :P

P.S. there are half a dozen new solar technologies getting ripe for the market. However all the technologies to produce them, do not exist in the USA ... because the only thinks you can do are some processors, macs and fighter bombers. Just as if you are not interested in "technology" anymore. If you had not that Eloi, USA had probably no high tech at all anymore.

We are a republic for this reason. And the electoral college is part of the checks and balances. We need them today just as we did 250 years ago.
Historically the electors where needed because you could not expect all the voters to go to Washington.
So people went to the states, and declared "you tell me how to vote, and I promise, if the guy looks decent when I meet him: I vote as you said". That is where the "electoral college" comes from. However: the elector could vote how ever he wanted.

In our times: they are bound to vote how their state decided the election.

That means: they are completely superfluous. There is no check and balance what so ever ... it only gives the "switch states" irresponsible power.

The USA probably have the wort democratic system of the planet ... and the one that is most resistant to change :P

The popular vote should be for a person and not a party.
Look for France for example.

The point in your system is, third parties have no chance at all ... and the amount of votes they get is a rand note in the news.

Wearing a mask is not supposed to protect you from COVID (albeit it does a little bit), it is supposed to prevent you from spreading it, in case you have it and don't notice it. You remember: asymptomatic spreading, right?

When you started the war, it was not called WW2. And the US at that time was isolationist. Ironic, Japan forced our entry, and Germany felt the need to declare war against us as well. But we didn't start the war.
You did start the war in the pacific by putting an oil embargo on Japan.

To say it simple without insult: you have no clue what was going on at that time.

And my "previous rant" was about what USA did after WWII, and what it is doing today ... not about which war action was started by whom.

The winner writes history, that is why it is written that Germany started the war. Which it actually did not. The war in North Africa was started by Italy, and the war in the pacific was started by Japan ... ooops.

You wage war against Iran, why?

You deposed the Shaw because he refused to sell oil "for USD only" ....

You misjudged and instead of "actually I do not know which revolution army you favoured" - the "islamists" won the revolution. What actually would have been the difference if the "communists" had won? Oh, we had peace now, as ALL communist countries converted into navel observers that do not do anything outside of their country. Because: they farking do nor care about other countries.

So, what is the fight in Iran about? Oil again.

US exports more oil than it imports. Higher oil price, win win win.

The only people in the US that suffer are gasoline customers ... the oil industry wins big time with higher oil prices.