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Comment Re:Let me guess: new standard? (Score 2) 18

Google learned to embrace, extend and extinguish right out of Microsoft's playbook. They were excellent students and you can see the results in how email and web "standards" work today.

The difference is that when Microsoft did it the authorities eventually started getting in their way to promote more openness and competition again. So far there is little sign that anyone intends to challenge the way a few tech giants have recently been capturing long-established standards that we rely on for what have become vital services and effectively taking ownership for their own purposes. The governments and their regulators are either asleep at the wheel or, if you're a bit less trusting, bought and paid for.

Comment Re:Porn (Score 4, Insightful) 198

Only a racist cares about "ethnic replacement". Because only a racist is compelled to classify people living in the same social environment into different ethnicities, and he completely ignores people from different backgrounds having children together, because in his mind, this is an abomination and shall not happen[tm].

Comment Re:Done. (Score 1) 212

Because they don't. That's the basic error. Yes, sometimes they cooperate. But the U.S. cooperates with China from time to time. And even with Russia, when it comes to the Ukraine War, especially with Donald Trump at the helm. Is the U.S. now a secret ally of Iran, because the U.S. sells soy beans to China, and Iran sells oil to China? As I say, you have a completely simplistic world view, lumping everything together, and blind to what really goes on.

Oil prices rise, and what's the U.S. answer to that? Lift oil sanctions against Iran and Russia. What does Putin want more than more revenue to finance his war? He does not need to step in in support of Iran. He got everything he wanted out of the conflict already. Even the amount of air defense missiles the U.S. could potentially sell to the Ukraine is reduced, because they are now all fired into Iran, 10 million dollar items, each to shut down a single 1000 dollar drone. North Korea acts according to the well known strategy: "Don't stop your enemy when he is making mistakes". And what does Trump? Getting angrier and threatening to leave NATO, which has nothing to do with the war on Iran, did not want the war in Iran, even warned him that this would be exactly the big blunder it proves to be. But I fully support the other NATO members here: You break it, you own it. Donald Trump led the U.S. in this quagmire without any necessity. It's his very own job to clean up the mess he made.

Comment Re:Done. (Score 1) 212

but i do consider the Islamic Republic, North Korea, Putin, to be "bad" in terms of being a menace in their neighborhoods

That's your error in a nutshell.

Yes, they are bad, and I don't want to live in any of the countries. But lumping them together and consider them a monolithic block marching in sync is such a misjudgment of reality, that it is exactly that simplistic world view I am referring to. If the police chases a suspected killer, do you expect the thief to come out in support of the killer, just because both are bad? No, the thief does not care if the police catches the killer or not. He will seize the opportunity with the eyes of the police somewhere else to continue stealing unimpeded. That's what Putin or Xi Jinping or Kim Jong-Un are doing right now. There is no point in defending Iran and getting into the line of fire. The eyes of the world are somewhere else, and they can continue whatever they are up to right now with less scrutiny.

The world is not a superhero comic, where the superhero with supernatural superpowers thumps the baddie and everyone applauds. The world is not a secret agent movie where there is only one real antagonist, everyone else considered bad is in serfdom to him, and his henchmen lack any marksmanship, while the agent will hit two of them with a single .22 round from 1000 yards away. And the world is not a chess game with a limited set of pieces, each with a limited set of legal moves, and you win by catching the enemy's king.

Comment Re:Done. (Score 1) 212

1) They knew it already. Nothing to see here. Iran was always the outcast on the Persian Gulf, being Shiite, anti-monarchist and Non-Arabian.

2) That's the whole point. Iran shows that you can do damage cheaply, and very expensive to defend against, even against an enemy with far superior firepower.

3) It was before, and like Hamas, it is so deeply rooted in society that you have to kill the population, e.g. commit genocide to get it out.

Why should China and North Korea come out in support? Do they gain anything from their verbal support? As long as China gets its oil from Iran (which it does, and cheaper than other countries), it just sits and waits. And North Korea could not care less for Iran, but grins broadly because the U.S. is wasting money and military power somewhere else.

Your whole idea how the world works is very simplistic and in a black-and-white, us-versus-them scheme.

Comment Re: Normal (Score 1) 136

Still, you got it wrong, because the curve around 100 is flat, and given that the IQ is rounded to a whole number, a significant part of the population has an IQ of 100 (or 99.5 to 100.5). Thatâs what the curve vs. triangle was aimed at. Add to the fact that individual results can vary a lot, depending on the exact Series and the current State of mind of the one tested, results between 95 and 105 are well within the IQ-100 group.

Comment Re: New religion (Score 1) 136

Thatâs not an independent thinker. Thatâ(TM)s someone who routinely doubts everything. But as Henri Poincaré already observed more than 100 years ago: To doubt everything and to believe everything are considered two equally convenient strategies, both of which relieve us of the necessity of thinking or reflection. (And I know, a witty saying proves nothing.)

Comment Re:Renewables rock (Score 2) 113

It's even more complicated. German law treats the grid as "copper plate", and ignores all regional differences. If a wind park in Northern Germany offers electricity for 8 ct/kWh, then a consumer in Southern Germany is allowed to buy that power and is entitled to get it delivered via the grid. And if the grid can't handle the load because of weak interconnectivity, then a gas turbine in Southern Germany will start and generate the power for 18 ct/kWh, but the consumer only pays 8 ct. The 10 ct/kWh difference is paid by all consumers with higher energy prices.

For Southern Germany, this is quite the deal, because they can now operate expensive gas turbines, and get them subsidized at least in part by electricity consumers in Northern Germany with higher energy prices, while the cheap energy generated in Northern Germany is switched off, as the energy on the books is sold already, but the electricity is generated somewhere else. But because Southern states profiteer from the situation right now, there is much resistance to changes in the law, which would make energy in the South more expensive, while Northern states would get a relief.

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