the stock market goes up and down daily, but with a functioning economy it will overall be up. from a distance you are right, something that keeps going up keeps achieving new highs.
but, if you follow the market on a daily basis, you will be paying attention to the market swooning for periods of time, maybe with a small recovery and then another swoon. New "all time highs" do provide convenient notifications that the economy has now grown from before. Without new highs, your investments are treading water.
“ US officials also made unacceptable "threats" to the French language and "Quebec culture", he added, referencing the French-speaking province in eastern Canada.”
Well the argument is that Quebec has certain laws in place, e.g. French labelling requirements that either increase costs for companies, or make it infeasible for companies to sell to the Quebec market if they've only got marginal profits there.
Some companies would prefer if French labels weren't required.
I don't know, I can't really figure out what modern US conservatives really want anymore. Maybe one of them will chime in and help us understand why we would want this.
They want power, control, and the out tribes to submit to them, while having nothing to offer and not enough leverage to make it happen. Weak bully bullying.
I've commonly seen this trade war called "purely random", or the result of Trump holding a personal grudge against Canada. However, the most convincing argument I've seen (and I wish I could recall the source) is that Trump is simply playing to his base.
Blue collar MAGA workers have seen manufacturing jobs slowly bleed to other countries over the last few decades. Nevermind that the U.S. have moved up the value chain while this has gone on, or that the same thing has happened in Canada. It's not about logic. It's about pain and (perceived) revenge. Blue collar MAGA workers want to see other countries punished, regardless of whether they're punished along with them. That's why Trump goes out of his way to humiliate his allies even though it puts him at a disadvantage in negotiations. (If this trade war were purely economic, Carney would have an easier time backing down and giving into demands. As things stand, he has no choice but to dig in and fight.)
If you buy this, what MAGA wants is to punish anyone "not us". It's not about economic gain. It's not some well-reasoned desire to redress past grievances (Canada has lost jobs in the same way, and probably more to the U.S. than vice-versa). It's purely an emotional desire to inflict pain.
A more disturbing question is: "Why is Trump alienating independents to cater to a shrinking hardcore MAGA base?". He can't win elections this way. This does, however, maintain a fanatically loyal base that's willing to do unconscionable things for their leader.
They started with applying it directly based on trade deficit, and that was mentioned again in this with Canada. Completely idiotic economic policy: if you're buying up some crucial rare mineral from some micro nation why would you care that they use the money to buy fuel from some other country closer nearby with refineries and lower shipping costs, etc. It's really backwards.
A balanced trade deficit at each connection between each nation worldwide would be very inefficient.
A trade (money) deficit is a goods surplus. The U.S. is getting more stuff than they can make themselves because the world likes to invest in the U.S. and American consumers are still confident enough that they're not socking away savings. Only if Trump succeeds in driving away foreign investment and shaking the confidence of American consumers can he reduce the trade deficit. That won't be pleasant for Americans, but Trump sure seems to be off to a solid start.
That's the overall trade defecit and you can argue about that, can be fine during periods of growth, etc.., but trying to have no trade deficit with each country on an individual basis makes no sense. It's almost like moving back to barter with no medium of exchange.
Yes, "the hell" that has been our southern neighbours for quite some time, that apparently their vast majority of eligible voters prefers, or is too ignorant to understand their rapid decent into "pick one or more" (they are not mutually exclusive): kleptocracy, dystopia, fascism, theocracy...
(If those numbers are accurate, personally - I have "opinions" about the legitimacy of Trumps numbers)
Also - in-my-opinion, complacency around "not voting" means tacit acceptance of whomever arrives.
The lack of any large-scale, on-going citizen protests, disruptions (general strikes), seems to indicate the same - but I sure hope I am wrong and things may shift a little with their upcoming midterms (if they are legitimate).
OTOH, perhaps the various media (traditional and social) platforms have been doing some "calming" around stories of various protests to avert large-scale social disruptions... (We certainly can't trust the various executives/boards of those organizations when you track who/when they have been donating money and "gifts" too, and which events their leadership have attended...)
Its not the code so much as the model. The model itself can be poison pilled and embedded with ideas that make it unfit for use and there isn't a person out there who can look at the weights and tell you what or where the problem is by looking at the code.
this isn't if-else statements, its a jumble of linear algebra and matrices.
I watched a demonstration where one AI was trained to be obsessed with penguins. they asked for a random set of numbers from it. They fed that set into another AI model to analyze and the new model started to become obsessed with penguins.
I dont think open source is the only one to worry about though. I don't know if we even have a way to guarantee any model is secure, open or closed.
That’s fascinating. I know there are a few different kinds of “thinkers” out there. Conceptual, visual, language. I wonder if temporarily devolving language center capability would change someone’s thinking model
Grazing animal yields are directly related to the forage the animals can eat.
Farmers are trying to optimize the number of bites and steps an animal takes to get full. Fewer bites and fewer steps means bigger animals.
Which means farmers are generally focused on how good their grass is. This leads to a focus on soil health, rotational grazing, pushing out less productive plants, etc.
The concern around grazing animals and solar is from whether solar will impact grass growth which will in turn impact the animals’ growth.
Which it doesn’t.
Shade can impact grass growth. Grass doesnt grow as effectively under heavy canopy. But it’s generally the fallen leaves that actually kill off grass.
It seems that solar panels do not block enough light to have any impact on grass growth.
I just don't see how the fuel costs of getting things up to space winning out unless production is located up there. especially since rocket launches tend to be extremely static.
More dangerously, I think that would inevitably lead to space being the battlefield. Since that area doesn't need any more shrapnel orbiting at 17,500 mph; it seems an idea best left to the drawing board. The cleanup required will make clearing mine fields seem like dusting the living room.
> I just don't see how the fuel costs of getting things up to space winning out unless production is located up there.
Starship's in theory targeting something like a million bucks in fuel for a launch. For a military that spends more than that on individual missiles, that's peanuts.
Sure, but that's true of Saturn V as well, and of Falcon 9, and Soyuz and any other rocket you want. That didn't make space deployment a viable military strategy so far, and I think we should be skeptical of any such claim about Starship.
> Also, fuel is just part of the cost of a rocket.
Sure. But if you blew up a 747 at the end of every trip, it'd be a small part of the total cost, not a major part.
Starship's reusability makes it very clearly not like the other examples you cite, yeah? There are lots of scenarios where the US government would pay, say, $10M to deliver a payload somewhere fast, but not $250M.
The prospect of cleanup duty has never stopped anyone at war. Fields of landmines maiming children for decades, unexploded ordinance in cities, etc etc.
Near earth orbit will be a field of debris until gravity takes over.
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