I would go further: the idea that great research comes out of the private sector is a myth perpetuated by self-aggrandizing corporate heads. Even most AI research is the result of decades of academic work on cognitive science coming out of universities. (The big exception is transformer technology coming out of Google.) mRNA vaccines are based on publicly funded university research too. All the tech in smartphones like GPS and wifi comes from publicly funded research. The fact is, science works best when it’s open and publicly accountable, which is why things like peer review exist. Privatized knowledge generation is at a disadvantage compared to everyone openly working together.

The private sector is very good at the consumer facing portion of innovation, like user experience, graphical interfaces, and design. But the core technologies, with rare exception, almost never came out of the Silicon Valley.

“Instead of seeking happiness, save money with misery”

At this point, I only keep Chrome around for the odd website that only works on Chrome. It's astonishing how quickly Google is burning through good will lately.

I think it's such a boomer-y perspective to treat phones as toys. For a lot of people, smartphones are their main computer. People do their homework, do research, learn languages, fill out forms, and lots of other productive activities.

Even communication is not frivolous. What if someone wants to talk to their father working in a factory in distant Guangdong for their birthday?

I feel like we’re getting old. Is this our “kids these day can’t even change their own oil” moment?

Can someone explain this to me?

I don’t think Canada has an Alabama. As conservative as they are, Alberta is wealthy, highly educated, and they frequently vote for women and POC. They like “small government”, but also have some of the highest paid government workers in the country. I just don’t see much similarity.

I think the comparison to Texas is more apt because they’re both conservative petro states with center left suburban sprawl cities.

All the best run states, with the highest education, best health, lowest crime, highest wages and strongest economies, are progressive. Inclusivity and taking care of the disadvantaged isn’t just a moral good. It makes us all better off when we give everyone a fair chance. This doctor is one example.

New Orleans used to be the 3rd largest city in the US and the 4th busiest port in the world. There’s no reason that Louisiana couldn’t have been as rich and prosperous as California or New York. But years of conservative policies make you poor.

The anecdote in the intro makes it sound like Ukrainians are going home for economic reasons, which comports with domestic concerns about cost of living, but further down it turns out almost none cite that as a reason. Most are returning home due to family, friends, homesickness, love of country, etc.

Blame the laws and three decades of Borkian precedent.

Yes. By having an official policy of propping up prices, the government is effectively giving a subsidy to homeowner profits at the cost of renters.

I think there needs to be some disambiguation.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop One is literally a train. They themselves call it a train. I guess the idea is that they're small individual cars (called pods) instead of a chain of train cars connected together, which seems really energy inefficient.

Elon Musk's Hyperloop is a train for automobiles, which has all the inefficient downsides of a personal car, with none of the energy benefits of a train. It is the worst of both worlds. And it relies on car infrastructure at both ends, so it will bottleneck just like a highway on/off ramp. Completely nonsensical.

For me, getting rid of the old reddit design as default was pretty egregious. Usability tanked if I wasn't logged in.

Predictable Musk apologist.

Tesla is the only company with such incorrect range estimates. There is now tons of evidence, such as internal communication, indicating that this was intentional lying. If they win, the payout will be to all affected, not just to those filing suit.

The real holy grail would be all this open source. “Free for now” doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Historically, past housing crises have been resolved with massive input from the federal government. I hope this government acts with urgency, people are suffering out there, but given that the last housing minister was literally a housing investor I'm not very hopeful. I think only the NDP has the right alignment of interest and values.

hot take: There should not be any area in the country that only allows detached SFHs. Townhomes, duplexes-triplexes-quadplexes, and 3-4 story walkups should be allowed everywhere in the country. If you start making exceptions, everyone wants an exception. Just open it up everywhere. Make these buildings as fast and easy to build as a detached SFH.

And before anyone complains about parking, we massively overbuild parking everywhere. Even in most of Vancouver, you can often find parking if you are willing to walk one or two blocks away. And before people say we first need more public transportation, I hate that the lack of density supposedly justifies not building public transportation, but the lack of public transportation also justifies not building density.

Both serial killers and librarians kill innocent strangers for no reason. Whew, I’m glad I’m being so clever and avoiding the black and white fallacy!

I’m not against EVs, but let’s not forget that they are still expensive and inefficient car infrastructure. EVs won’t do anything about congestion on the 401, or suburban sprawl causing the housing crisis.

Cars will always exist, but what we really need is more public transportation. It’s a no brainer to have a high speed train from London to Quebec City. And electric bikes — yes biking in winter is fine, people all over the world do it, Canadians used to do it before cars took over. You just need good bike infrastructure and dedicated snow removal for bikes.

Short sighted MBAs that try to squeeze out every penny from consumers don’t realize (or don’t care) how valuable good will is.