The consensus so far seems to be that they don’t collect as much data as people think, partly because they can’t process all of it, and partly because educated guesses are good enough to target ads often enough.

You look for network traffic. You might not be able to see inside the packets, but you can know when they’re sending packets, and how many. As far as I know, voice assistant systems that claim to use a secondary local circuit to detect calls are telling the truth.

Ha, rich people problems.

google products are banned on my work phone

Including Play Store?

So you’d rather be in a forest with a mali than in one with a bear?

Does it? The ‘anything goes on the high seas’ system has led to anarchy and piracy. I don’t know if Iran’s approach is the solution, but there needs to be some regulation.

Surely it’ll work this time.

International law is whatever countries agree to. There was a notion that primary schools aren’t legitimate missile targets, until, suddenly, they were. This is similar.

[reform] public procurement … and financial control

So, fire-sale public assets to BlackRock?

It’s the regime against the people

Iran is bordered on one side by Afghanistan, and on the other side by Iraq. Anyone with two brain cells can see what happened there after the Epstein regime invaded. Trying to help the Epsteinites kill your own people goes beyond even treason; it is some sort of death wish or misanthropy. I cannot blame the Iranian government for cracking down on this.

Also the sanctions are international

No they’re not; they were imposed by the Epstein coalition with the threat of secondary sanctions, and sometimes even violence.

the regime could get rid of them at any time

Yes, but the Epstein regime wants those sanctions, so as to hurt Iran’s economy.

It’s just that war and nuclear weapons are more important to them.

Nuclear weapons are, sadly, one of two things the Epstein regime fears, so they are a necessary evil if you want to be a sovereign nation.

And we all know who started this war.

Plus they run a very corrupt and inefficient economy anyway.

A very corrupt and inefficient economy that somehow produced enough weaponry to drive the biggest military in the world out of West Asia. I suppose when your efficiency stat is too low, it underflows and becomes insanely high?

Apple stuff are mostly Veblen goods, whose demand increases with price. That’s why this is interesting.

he was clueless that a skull and crossbones was a Nazi symbol

You don’t need to be a historian to guess that a skull and crossbones isn’t exactly a peace symbol.

I’ve heard Google use Debian as gLinux and I feel many other giants also use it and sponsor it and I’m not comfortable choosing it as my distro.

They use Debian for the same reason all heavy industry is built using steel and not whatever flashy new composite is in the news today. It works. Debian is slightly harder than Ubuntu / Mint to install and set-up, but probably the easiest to maintain since it is extremely stable and forgiving. It will also work on just about any hardware.

And don’t worry about the sponsorships. Debian is run by the community; the sponsers don’t get to decide anything.

Have you tried switching your government off and on again?

Devaluing the US dollar benefits the US and hurts countries that hold a lot of dollar, such as Japan, the UK and … China.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, steal from him.

NATO might be led by idiots, but luckily they do draw the line at starting WW3.

A failure of Israel’s defensive weapons would require them to go on the offensive.

Yes, but it will also require them to use alternative forces on defence, and it will also induce many Israelis to leave. This will create financial and manpower shortages. This might induce even more depraved behaviour in the short term, but I guess that’s a risk Iran & Co. are willing to take to ensure long-term peace.

My understanding is that Chinese companies have been able to replicate EUV lithography by either using particle accelerators or layering DUV. But the former requires a lot of electricity, and the latter has poor quality and reliability. But with falling electricity prices and fusion reactors around the corner, who knows?

why would a country announce such a thing?

If you don’t want all-out war, it’s a good idea to announce your attacks so the other side (1) doesn’t over-react, and (2) pays attention the next time you make a threat. Usually the downside is that the other side might use this information to try to stop you. But at this point Iran has pretty much total control of the Persian Gulf, so that’s not a huge risk.