I'm not sure where you get the "almost no support cost". The article I read about the Chinese factory said that the robots were just about all being replaces (by newer models) after only a year.

Sure the billionaires can leave CA. No loss there, because their money will stay there. That's where the businesses they want to fund are. That's where the talent they want to attract is. And billionaires themselves pay jack shit in taxes, it's the businesses that the money's in that matter. And for that matter, where are the billionaires going to move? Manhattan, Kansas?

By installing this app you may find your IP blocked by more and more websites.

In this case Trump is more a symptom than a cause. Local policing is more of a state level, or even city level, affair. But, yeah, it's a related event.

And remember, you should expect people to act in ways that make their job easier. It doesn't always happen that way, but that's what you should expect, no matter what the rules say.

That's possible, but you didn't cite your source for the statistic. And I think it quite unlikely, so, for me, you really need decent evidence rather than just a claim.

What do you mean "disproven"? Are you saying that mirrors don't reflect, that it won't be cost effective, or what?

Years back I was interviewing people for a coding position. We went through the standard tech stuff and then did a bit of project to see how they thought. We said (this is circa 2009'ish I think) - imagine you're on a team creating a new phone. You don't have time to test all the functions, so which would be your top two functions to ensure working?

All a bit Kobayashi Maru - obviously you can't release a phone testing only two functions, but we wanted to see what they'd prioritise. The very best answer we received was this one: "I would make sure it has the ability to call emergency services." Their thinking was that this was likely the most critical feature of a phone for both a user, and also for the manufacturer to avoid being sued. Absolutely great answer.

And yet here we are, with the post above. Taking the thinking of this interviewee - the ability to work with emergency services is important for general society, for the user of the vehicle (so they don't get in trouble) and for the manufacture of the vehicle (so they don't get fined/sued/both). Absolutely critical.

They've got a lot more components to their system...and the tooling isn't all software. As for software, IIUC, they're using a different multi-processing library. Making the weights compatible doesn't make the entire system compatible.

None of the middlemen are in a position to do that. It's all done by the manufacturer to name-brand specs. All the OEM does is add 25% to the production runs and sell the excess to the dropshippers. Changing the internals in any way would involve setting up a different production line, and that's too expensive compared to increasing capacity on an existing line. The economics are what made it appealing to buy grey-market electronics from Asia.

Other consumer goods, though, the economics are different. True cheap knock-offs are feasible, and you have to watch out for them. With the plethora of brands schlepping them, you need to be careful not to buy too much until you've actually seen the product. OTOH, if you do find a good one, the weird name doesn't have to be a negative. Just pay attention and be prepared to dump an order in the trash if it's not up to par (and don't buy from that brand again).

IIUC, the Chinese strategy is to come up with a cheaper collection of tools, including models, that are incompatible with the standard US tooling, and convince other countries to use their version instead. The US government seems to be actively pushing to make that strategy work. (E.g. abruptly cutting off access to models with no warning or explanation.)

And anybody with a warrant or a subpoena.

Most FOSS software starts small, and easy to learn, and if it's going to grow, it grows with a community of developers that understand the software. This? Unless it's pretty small and compact, that's unlikely. And those who are going to develop using it probably need a company behind them. (Plausibly one with a good legal staff.)

To be fair, BOTH voices felt off. Both the phone voice and the actress voice. But the actress voice sounded faker than the phone.

I don't think of that a "misogynistic", but definitely a stereotype..and a rather unrealistic one. But, I suppose, if you think "being a sexual tease" is a bad thing, you could think that.

IIUC, Meta sells compute to Anthropic. That's not "not finding a use".