> US passport is great because it allows easy employment access to US tech companies, who pay absurd amounts of money;
US companies don't pay absurd amounts of money, companies in other countries are the once that don't pay enough. Look at how much wealth tech industry has generated (and still is) for the US companies and the US economy, I think they should pay even more.
Azerbaijani dictatorial government turned off their social media so Azeri people do not know what is happening in their country.
This politically correct/cautious language is just insane, these are not "clashes with Armenia", Azerbaijan blatantly attacked Armenia and Artsakh with the support of Turkish special forces, Turkish military instructors, Turkish air support with F-16s fighter jets and with constant supply of terrorists from Syria by Turkey. And as we speak Azerbaijani military is shelling with cluster munition cities and villages of Artsakh (prohibited by International conventions) and the same time Turkey is moving terrorist jihadist groups from Syria to Azerbaijan to fight against Armenians and we barely hear about it on the news.
I am horrified with the lack of proper coverage from the western media outlets of this fact. This blatant act of aggression by Turkey and Azerbaijan against Armenia and Artsakh is just a continuation of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, which is recognized by the entire civilized world, including by the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Russia and Brazil. Turkey and Azerbaijan are just trying to wipe out entire Armenian population of the region, history repeats itself and west and the rest of the civilized world just stands by.
Please help to spread the information and raise the awareness.
>> Tatars are really the oldest owner of Crimea and they do not support Russia...
Tatars are not the oldest owner of Crimea. 2500 years ago Crimea was a Greek colony, then it was part of a Persian Empire, then Roman Empire, then Byzantine Empire [1] Mongols conquered Crimea only in 13th century.
Oldest that are living in that territory. No people from Persian Empire, then Roman Empire, then Byzantine Empire and Mongols at the moment living in Crimea.
Aznavour, who was born Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian in Paris to Armenian parents, sold more than 100m records in 80 countries and had about 1,400 songs to his name, including 1,300 he wrote himself. [1]
In 1998, Aznavour was named Entertainer of the Century by CNN and users of Time Online from around the globe.
On 19 September 2018, his last concert took place in NHK Hall, Osaka, Japan. It was 11 days ago, he was touring at 94! [2]
Aznavour spent 85 years on stage.
>> Self-checkout is all about cutting labor hours, period.
That is exactly the case. If you pay 10$ an hour for 3 shifts 8 hours each, this makes 3x8x10 = $240 a day. That is $7200 in 30 days per one checkout spot.
To setup equipment for self-checkout and maintain it order of magnitude cheaper compared to self checkout.
Another factor is eliminating managerial overhead while dealing with human beings, as one store manager told me referring to self-checkouts:
"They are never sick, they do not have an attitude, they do not quit and they can't be rude to customers".
Oh they can be rude to customers all right! And their attitude - push this button! Scan again! Put that item back on the scale! Alert! Alert! I despise them with every fibre of my being.
Yeah, I think the "rude to customers" thing (I've heard it too) is far too focused on the act of rudeness rather than the effects (unhappiness / lower retention).
Self-checkouts trade one kind of unhappiness for another, and many (most?) are horrifying experiences. There are a few that are reasonably quick and user-friendly, but certainly not all. Most seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel in an effort to squeeze a few more $ off the purchase price.
What is a "space force"? And why we need any kind of weapons in space?
There are already enough weapons to destroy every living thing on Earth multiple times, what makes you excited about new military spending?
We already have a "space force" - the Air Force - which was spun out of the Army. It's not odd to spin out the Space Force from the Air Force, if necessary.
> And why we need any kind of weapons in space?
Because other nations want to or are in the process of weaponizing space.
The first time someone knocks out one of our GPS satellites, you'll be asking, "why don't we have a Space Force to protect against this sort of thing?"
Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea." [0]
>>The first time someone knocks out one of our GPS satellites, you'll be asking, "why don't we have a Space Force to protect against this sort of thing?"
It is extremely unlikely that someone will start knocking down US satellites, that would be an equivalent of attacking US, that never happened after invention of nuclear weapons. To spend billions to prepare for extremely unlikely event does not
seem to be very rational thing to do. Meanwhile there are serious problems facing country and humanity in general
global worming, automation takes away millions of jobs, opioid crisis, millions of people without health insurance, school system that has major issues.
>> Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea."
Yes, Neil gets exited when space gets any attention.
> that would be an equivalent of attacking US, that never happened after invention of nuclear weapons.
Both nation-state and non-nation-state organized groups have attacked the US since the invention of nuclear weapons. (On US territory itself—notably on 9/11/2001—but more often US military assets off US territory, which is the closest equivalent to attacking a GPS satellite.)
What happens when an "anonymous hacker" finds a way to adjust the trajectory of a satellite, and someone needs to rapid response dispose of the rerouted satellite safely?
I can't see nations going forward making the investment in nuclear weapons unless they've already been making big investments. Look at NK, they've made investments in nuclear weapons as well as cyberwarfare. I'm sure the investment in cyberwarfare has been much, much smaller and they already hacked into Sony, reduced them to doing paper payroll for awhile, and released a bunch of compromising information. Sadly, the response from the US wasn't very serious. Unlike nuclear, the response has to be asymmetric because they don't have much of a network infrastructure to attack.
I just don't see what to invest in for a Space Force. Anyone looking to attack something like GPS would either use something like ground base lasers, software/network hacks, or traditional projectiles. Anything developed by the US would either be obsolete by the time its needed or get sold to adversaries and used right back at us.
Weapons can be an endless pit of development and the US is not a conquering nation. Let's say we could sustain an economy and develop the first nuclear weapons while everyone else is using spears; what was the opportunity cost? What's the value if it's only used for defense?
Outside of defense I know a large military and weapons help in having influence, but so does having a stable and large economy--the later moreso.
Nuclear weapons were developed out of a competition for survival. The people involved knew even in the hands of the Allied forces it was extremely dangerous. You're arguing we should invest in a Space Force because someone else might do it in the future.
> The first time someone knocks out one of our GPS satellites, you'll be asking, "why don't we have a Space Force to protect against this sort of thing?"
No, I won't. While the role is important, there is no sensible reason for a separate service, and the mission already exists in the Air Force.
Sure, we need the mission, just like we need the riverine warfare mission, or the littoral warfare mission. We don't need a separate service for any of those missions, though.
> Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea."
It's not a weird idea, and it's something we’ll quite likely eventually need. OTOH, quite probably not this century.
"what makes you excited about new military spending?"
I am guessing he is excited about the fact that they are focusing on space research.
The original Russian "rockets" were just ICBM stages. There are hundreds of examples of military research boosting tech, especially when it comes to medicine and spaceflight.
If government wants to boost space research then it should increase NASA's budget instead of creating "space force".
>> There are hundreds of examples of military research boosting tech
Increasing military spending to boost tech or space research is like killing mosquito with the bazooka.
DoD is extremely ineffective organization, there are estimates that it wastes $125 Billion annually from its budget. [1]
If government wants to increase spending on research and tech they need to invest in education first.
School system in US has very low rankings compared to other developed countries.
>DoD is extremely ineffective organization, there are estimates that it wastes $125 Billion annually from its budget. [1]
20% innefficiency for a very large government org (which for decades has been successfully dodging audit)? I'd say that would be a pinnacle of efficiency :)
I would say the DoD is very effective. When was the last time the US was attacked by another country on our home soil? 1941? What about Europe? When was the last time a European country was attacked? March 2014.
Now “effectively is not the same as “efficient.” DoD and pretty much every single other large government agency could be considered very inefficient. But ineffective? Not at all.
> When was the last time the US was attacked by another country on our home soil?
The peak of the most recent foreign military offensive against the US was in 2016; the operation was quite successful in achieving the war aims, is the single most successful military operation ever conducted against the US, and is now in the exploitation phase.
They had a aircraft cannon attached to the Salyut 3 in 1974. No longer active of course.
I'm just pointing out that other countries are not afraid of weaponizing space- we are simply behind and at a disadvantage if we don't. Especially since satellites play an important role in military and civilian infrastructure.
How, exactly, are we at a disadvantage? We can rain destruction on any point on the Earth's surface, and have proven technology for shooting down satellites (and inevitably bringing down our own because suddenly there are billions of new objects in orbit from destroying 1 satellite.)
Where are the gaps? Do you anticipate an alien invasion? If so, we'd be fucked. Do you think the <insert current trendy US enemy here> has some secret space technology to turn the entire US into a parking lot instantly, and somehow we have to put $35bn BB guns on satellites to combat it?
There are reasons why they gave up the idea of having weapons in space. Weapons in space are very expensive and dangerous. And they can be easily destroyed. Currently there are no serious weapons that can be useful in space.
No, they just took a normal weapon and mounted it.
> dangerous. And they can be easily destroyed
Literally all mounted weapons can be described like this.
> Currently there are no serious weapons that can be useful in space.
Absolutely incorrect. The US has deployed laser-based weapons since the early 2000s. Used for missile defense mostly. As you can imagine, they perform well in the vacuum of space.
>>Absolutely incorrect. The US has deployed laser-based weapons since the early 2000s. Used for missile defense mostly. As you can imagine, they perform well in the vacuum of space.
Can you provide an example of a laser weapon(s) that can actually shoot down ballistic missile or cruise missile in real life scenario?
The best that current laser weapons can do is to shoot down drones from relatively close distance. [1]
Another issue with laser weapons in the space is powering them and maintaining them.
>>What stopped Soviet tanks from rolling into West Berlin? It wasn’t a brigade of huggable teddy bears.
The same thing that stops them now, nuclear weapons, huge military and NATO. No one is suggesting to not have defense or to stop spending money on defense. US already spends more on defense than next 10 countries in the list combined, most of which are US allies [1]. There is no need to spend more.
We still can spend money and save 50000 kids, it is not an A OR B problem.
There is plenty of money and resources out there to save all kids dying from easily preventable diarrheal diseases. There is no political will to do that.
11 of the 12 most polluted cities on earth are in India. They need to build a lot faster given coal is still 3/4 of their energy generation. The US is a laggard on solar as a percentage of energy generation, and even the US has a larger share of its energy derived from solar than India does.
India's air pollution problem is only partially due to power plants. Much of it comes from things like cooking fires, agricultural burning, and combustion vehicles. Closing down coal would be a step forward, but wouldn't solve the problem alone.
He often has leading scientists and subject matter experts on his podcasts.
>> Joe is an "average dude"…
Average dude who:
- Is a successful comedian who writes his own material.- Is a leading martial arts commentator and holds black belt himself.
- Made $30M last year plus made $100M from the Spotify deal.
I am not sure what is your metric that makes him average.