I think it is the crash of Tesla, its evaluation is based on being a silicon tech startup, not as an automobile company. So when the shares finally fall in line with other car manufacturers valuation, shit is going to hit the fan. And I think he knows he needs a government bailout and sanctions on foreign EVs specifically to price the competition out of the market. His entire empire is basically being propped up by the Tesla share price. He needs to go all in, it is survival mode for him right now

Some of us like to tinker. We really get satisfaction of having a weird niche filled and even if it comes at the cost of stability and other issues. Heck my Custom Roms used to be more up to date with security updates than phones that were older than one year.

I could use kernels that undervolts my processor to give me better battery life. It allowed features that even 5 years ago were on the custom ROM scene still very absent from modern phones.

But the most important part for me was learning, discovering. If I tried a new ROM I would spend hours going through certain roms settings. If there is a glitch, learn how to diagnose and try to fix it, or learn to send a logcat to the developer.

It was like a fun hobby. I learned how to fix some of my old phones, like screen replacement, and learned how to cure uv reactive glue. So many other things and I was just a noob.

But it gave freedom. I understand iPhone and the other high brands are easy to use, have gimmicky features and all, but dammit I have freedom to have my weird niche phone, with multiple breaking features and I loved it because it just worked.

If Google truly did hold security as its main concern, it would have opened the play Store, yet we know now they only wish to protect their monopoly

Opening a can of worms here, but I might have an opinion going against the grain. The minimum wage rate is not the problem, technically it should be $0.

The issue here is basically legislation, policies and government, that has been captured by these big corporations to be business friendly and antagonistic to the workers.

Make no mistake being friendly towards businesses should be important, basically the driver of the economy, why these three billionaires are not the root cause of your problem. Your root problem has been the corporate capture of your government, that has bled through your other pillars of democracy, your judicial and finally the big one, the people. Americans are, in my opinion, so addicted to fast news, so that everything should stir an emotional response. You have been polarised for political and vested interest gains. You have let yourselves down. By not uniting, by dividing yourselves, you the people have become weak, thus a united market will take advantage of you, distract you to non issues, while conquering your nation.

It can be changed but only if there is a cultural change, and the will of the people will guide that change.

South Africa, you can read up on us if you want to learn about a country that really fucked up its energy supply, but that is a different story.

You do need a baseload, this is not something an argument of saying we do not really need a baseload can wish away, industries that run 24/7 like a smelting operation where if you cannot shutdown, or hospitals or traffic lights, there is a certain percentage of baseload that has to be generated.

Solar and wind are amazing and I really wish to see these systems play a major role in power generation, but you say the nuclear and coal plants are very inflexible. I do not know who this guy is but Nuclear and coal can very easily ramp up their power generation, both these are basically steam engines, both nuclear and coal can very quickly heat up and generate a lot more steam that powers generators, like an car engine but more accurately a steam train that you give more power to go faster. Solar and wind cannot ramp up on their own, cannot ask the wind to blow harder or the sun to shine brighter suddenly when the system requires it, they need costly backup systems like methane peaker plants or energy storage, be it batteries, pumped hydro, hydrogen electrolysis the list goes on. These things added to solar and wind plants are usually not allocated to the cost of generation, a total cost of generation including these additional backup systems are a better indicator of solar and wind systems cost.

Now what about waste. I agree coal is messy and is causing global warming and needs to be phased out. But nuclear waste is a solved problem, it has been for decades, the spent fuel is usually stored deep underground where it will never interact with the world again. Solar on the other hand, if it costs about $20-$30 to recycle a panel but like $1-$3 to send it to a waste dumps, what do you think will happen to the solar panels. https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power Harvard business did an article about how solar recycling has really been a point of weakness, where nuclear we have set guidelines on how to environmentally and safely dispose of nuclear waste currently. I am willing to bet you the environmental impact from pollution from nuclear, including all the disasters will be negligible compared to the waste impact from solar panels and batteries currently.

So my point is not to dismiss solar or wind, really where wind and sunshine are naturally plentiful it will be a waste not to harvest these resources, just like where geothermal resources are available it will be wasteful not to utilise it.

But nuclear, even with its high initial capital cost and long build time, still does provide energy cheaply and will last for a lot longer than solar panels and wind turbines, nuclear can be easily and quickly ramped up or down depending on the load required.

Well one easy one, in my country it is that nuclear plants need to emit zero radiation from their core, like nothing. This is incredibly expensive to achieve, a more sensible value would have been similar or less than normal background radiation.

Nuclear has a lot of advantages that are really low hanging fruit of producing safe clean energy that is perfect for a grids baseload.

Like I am also looking at how to upgrade and damn these handhelds look like such a win win. Full gaming system for the cost of a single decent GPU

I have seen one, and it was on a school trip in 2004 in Durban where they brought one of the caught great White Sharks and dissected it in front of us kids for “educational” purposes, basically showing us what it has in its stomach, how it has infinite teeth. They use these “educational” dissections as justification for draglines and nets unfortunately.

I actually wrote an email to the new Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment: Dr Dion George, giving my two cents like how draglines and nets are outdated and dangerous to the shark population, how much better methods now exist. I only received an email saying they noted my concern. At least there are organisations really trying to save not only the great White shark but many other marine animals

Sadly through studies, like the one that ended in 2019, we have lost about 90% of our population then. The issue still is the use of draglines along the coast and nets which kill a large number of Sharks like in KZN, and the orcas also chase away some of our white Sharks.

Go look up yourself to see how our population has been decimated

It’s sad that we don’t have great White Sharks anymore

I love Mint 22 so far, it really has matured where my home computer is running Mint is more stable than my work computer running Windows 11, luckily my company uses CrowdStrike so nothing to worry there.

But really I now recommend Mint to my non tech savvy friends and family, as a person who uses Linux should! But joking aside took my sister’s old laptop running Windows 7, slapped a SSD and upped the ram to 8 GB into it with Mint and she has been happy

I understand that Epic funded their project to be an Epic exclusive, but was that a financially sound decision excluding the major market place. Could they not have worked in like a two year or three year exclusive period

Yeah I feel there is a weird history between steam and remedy media. Like I remember when you could one day buy Alan Wake like really cheap since it was being taken off steam. Then the Epic deal making Alan Wake 2 exclusive basically meant they excluded a lot of customers immediately on steam.

I literally feel there is a Hollywood exec that has done a line of cocaine and said exactly that

Fuck I hope Hollywood finally realises that they have really hit the the bottom of the barrel regarding remakes. Also, some sequels or whatever-quels have been hit and miss.

They need to focus on new fresh ideas, something new. Unfortunately they have to do something that is much harder now and that is not playing safe with proven IP. Make new IP, what ever gets the right team to be consistent with new movie ideas, maybe like Studio A24, will be in blue waters not fighting over the nostalgia against each other.

If you want to look at a country that solved their power problem with solar, I heard that is exactly what Vietnam did by incentivising the private generation of power, basically buying extra power from people’s solar. But do your own research, not entirely sure of the whole story

Bullshit, South African here. Yes solar has helped, mostly the affluent who can afford to install their own private home/business solar power.

But The huge problem what caused it was the ANC, which in May lost its majority in the elections for the first time since 1994.

The state run power company, Eskom, had been run into the ground by the ANC due to corruption and incompetence. In 1997 a white paper showed there would not be enough power by 2007. The only two power stations they build, the two largest in the world if I am not incorrect has been the subject of the state capture commission due to corruption.

In 2024 when it became clear they might lose majority, they exempted themselves from a government policy, which affects all medium to large businesses, which mandated they had to procure anything like maintenance or supplies through a BEE (black economic empowerment) partner. The idea is good but has been abused as rent seeking by the politically connected. So now they are exempt and the OEMs can directly work to fix and maintain the power stations.

Funny due to the loadshedding, or rolling blackouts, we did not have enough power stations working, and as far as I know we were one, if not the only country reaching our Paris accords targets.

But solar power is here to stay, heck even I want it on my own place, due to the cost of electricity becoming unaffordable, if you take a 10 year loan on a solar system, the cost savings will pay of the system itself. This has led to the affluent that can afford high tariffs prices from Eskom switch to Solar, saving them money, but they were used to subsidise electricity prices for the poor. So now the poor must pay more for electricity.

The government did finally approve the independent power producers bill, finally allowing people other than government to produce electricity, and solar looks like a solid option, since we have lots of Sun and the falling prices. So government is loosing grip on the generation market, allowing the free market to make changes.

But I will say it has been so nice to have had uninterrupted power when I come home, not needing to throw out my freezer food, having a hot shower, being able to prepare food on a hot stove under lights instead of a braai/BBQ.

No Park Chan Wook films? Is there a beef between them? I assumed since they are from the same country he would have mentioned on af Parks more obscure works, or at least something

Microsoft launcher on my Nokia T20 3GB version and on that little memory the tablet had regular crashes. Went back to stock no fine

Some cities this can work, but some cities have been engineered to keep certain people out, we call it a tax on the poor, they cannot afford to live in the city, so they must stay outside like 30km minimum, and travel everyday in and out, about 1.5h a shot, so 3 hours total, plus 9 hours work. And for a salary if the employer is generous and pays above minimum wage we are talking US$250/month. 20-30% of this goes to transport (thank the taxi mafia which government does nothing against). When the government did put cycle lanes in our economic hub of a city, the poor decried since it took their public transport lane and gave the rich a nice cycle line to avoid all the traffic since they live close to work. Also, rampant crime makes it so that if you are poor and cannot afford security, good luck keeping your bike that won’t be stolen for scrap metal or whatever for a Nyaope hit (heroin with HIV anti retrovirals that have hallucinogenic properties as a side effect)

South Africa and referring to Johannesburg, CBD to be specific. Yeah and our piss poor unemployment of 33% officially, closer to 50% unofficially, makes sure that if you are dissatisfied you can be easily replaced. Entrenched oppression is fucking hectic.

Shiv really let herself go after Succession