Only if it is in the public interest to destroy bitcoin.

Imagine if one person were suddenly revealed to unilaterally posses sole authority/ownership over 1/10th of dollars in circulation with no checks, or limits on how or what they could do with them, when or how fast!

Do you think that would do much for dollar confidence? I think likely lead to a pretty immediate discounting of the dollar probably around 10% in real value. The impact on Bitcoin would be a great deal more pronounced because Bitcoin is so much less liquid.

They (Iran) obviously chose it because it is at least in the short term comparatively difficult to sanction but also not to difficult to convert. It would not do them much good to collect tolls in some other currency and subsequently have US diplomatic pressure cut them off from the banking networks that generally handle that currency.

I am not saying that Bitcoin isn't highly traceable and that the US and other governments wont try and won't ultimately succeed making it so punitive to accept payments (in bitcoin) from Iran that Iran has to trade their bitcoin at a significant discount to those wiling to launder it and / or accept having tainted funds they can't spend a lot of place as well. That will happen, but will take some time to become really effective.

It does leave you wonder if the people who whisper in Trump's and Bibb's ears and their friends who might whisper in the ears IRGC types might indeed have provoked this whole thing in order to create a situation Bitcoin or some other crypto-currency could be forcibly inserted into the "international system".

It is interesting to think about because I do still believe in light of hyper-sonic missile and drone tech, and expanding Chinese influence there were / are good strategic reasons to remove Iran as an international player right now, for the US. Attacking Iran was a smart move... Letting them survive as even a regional power isn't. The ability to fight them is determined by the domestic clock on war powers. Trump is an idiot for wasting two weeks on this cease fire, he should economically disabled them, finishing it. Whoever he listened to on accepting those terms is not advising him well. We should have at least destroyed their remaining oil infrastructure, before any pause.

Yup and that's why no matter how cringe it makes one feel it's time to swallow that pride and vote Democrat in 2026. Then again in 2028 and then again in 2030 and then once more in 2032. After that amount of time being crushed maybe the Republican party will be in a place where the nation can consider viable stewards of governance but not before then. Things to get fixed and certain generations need to die off more before they can be trusted again.

I routinely get 8+ years from my Mac laptops (over the last nearly 30 years!), and there's no compromises in the Neo's build quality. How many of those $600 laptops will you buy in 8 years? That's part of what would make these attractive for schools.

So, should betting on the final number of little girls that Trump has raped be allowed? How about betting on how long someone actually survives(down to the second) that a specific person lives after being pushed out of an airlock from the ISS? Betting on things that by themselves are seen as disgusting behaviors is something that shouldn't be legal. Putting regulations on things that can be manipulated as well, just to help certain people profit while others get hurt makes a lot of sense, but the Trump administration and friends support any sort of corruption and illegal activity as long as they can personally profit from it.

Anyone who even calls other people "a commie" are generally poorly educated and have zero clue about ANYTHING involving politics. That's not a defense of rsilvergun, just an observation based on what the least educated people use as an insult. You probably support that pedophile in the White House as well as his pedophile friends.

I think it was brought up because a youtuber brought it up recently in one of their videos and it probably went viral.

He mentioned how it was billed as supposedly a relaxing spa type retreat that wasn't, and what was a disaster for some, others found fun and team building.

It wasn't captured as anything other than "CEO misreads room for team building event". All I know is such activities aren't for me so I don't know if those who weren't equipped to do that sort of thing had an alternative thing or they were forced to participate.

What really scared them was other countries not tolerating that bullshit and in most other countries if you lose a lawsuit like this the other party can come after you for damages. They don't care about negative PR, but a case where they are forced to pay out for having their spurious claims disproved scares the living shit out of them because it sets a precedent.

Yeah... Android manufacturers need to pull their finger out and give Apple some better ideas.

Multiple manufacturers have tried the folding phone several times with little to no success. I can't see Apple succeeding (they'll pretend they are though).

What I can see is Apple presenting their most rigid phone ever as "the iFold 1billion and 2 PRO" with someone standing on stage showing us that it flexes slightly if measured with laboratory equipment... and when people break it in real life telling us "you're folding it wrong".

The ThinkPad line started life as business grade notebooks. They were never consumer laptops, and company IT centres were expected to service them. Even ex corporate second hand ThinkPads were both desirable and very usable. To Lenovo's credit, although they messed around with the designs, sometimes badly, they have generally preserved the quality until now. It's their school and gaming laptop offerings that are pretty shaite.

Special Operator type training is far too advanced for a corporate retreat, what they really need is basic. Learning how to march as a unit, work as a unit, understand and follow orders, et al. Shit that a soldier is expected to have down pat long before they ever get advanced training. Training that might actually be useful in helping people work together or improving discipline... However the ego of your average corporate dick will never allow that, they think they're special so they want the special training.

But in reality they aren't getting anything special, just paying to be shouted at by someone who claims they were a SEAL, SAS, et al. but in all likelihood never were.

Not really an unknown consequence.

Popular brands know never, ever release your cheap products under your brand. Airlines are famous for this, when QANTAS wanted to release cheap, no frills flights under a LCC model, they didn't brand it as QANTAS CHEAP because that would cheapen the brand QANTAS, they created a new airline called JetStar and even though they are wholly owned subsidiaries. It's not unusual for a budget airline to operate under the parent airlines AOC (Air Operator Certificate... the bit of paper that says you're allowed to carry passengers), LEVEL (Spanish low cost carrier) operated under another AOC until it got it's own (Iberia's I think). The point is, they didn't want to associate the parent brands just in case they got successful.

But this isn't exactly off brand for Apple, they're charging $700 for a $300 laptop and $300 is being generous as we know it's really a $200 phone.

Seems like the "ceasefire" is already broken.

The correct response to reacting to a crazy asshole madman is to bomb his shithole country to the ground, pour prevenir les autres.

At least, that was the theory of Iraq 2003-2011.

Maybe they're both true. Maybe they're both false.

Or maybe don't engage with talking points dreamed up by propagandists?

No argument.