I see plenty of people, even on this site, who are calling for peace in Ukraine. Unfortunately they get shouted down by armchair warriors who just see all this as part of their geopolitical ‘game’.

1. There’s an uptick in ‘Unknown’ (currently at 26%).

2. Linux adoption might have slowed down because India - US relations have improved since then, because Trump can be distracted by promising him trade deals. Of course the deal he wants (giving US agri companies access to the Indian market) will face opposition from farmers’ unions, so I’m not sure what the govt’s long-term plan is.

One good thing is that when a govt dept switches to Linux, it sort of sticks. And govt contracts are very profitable, so we’ll likely see greater interest from both hardware and software companies.

How does your doctor have a say in your rent agreement?

9% in India. But this is down from a peak of ~15% late last year when the govt was worried about US sanctions and was pushing for Linux adoption.

Funny you should mention that. I was reading some discussion that several countries’ central banks are buying up gold. There was also one guy speculating that they might make some sort of gold-backed currency for international trade.

Time is a circle, etc.

Couple of issues here - first, for the Euro to be used as a reserve currency, the EU would have to be a net importer of goods (and exporter of Euros). But EU policy is based on avoiding deficits. Second, for the Euro to be taken seriously by other countries, there should be something manufactured by the EU, that can, at least in theory, be bought with it. But the EU’s manufacturing sector, particularly in Germany, is collapsing.

India Russia and China hate each other to the bone.

India and Russia have had goid relations for over half a century. Polls in India usually show Russia as the most liked foreign nation. China and Russia also have had good relations for at least the last decade or so.

India-China relations are complicated. There is a border conflict, but China is our biggest trading partner, and we need China’s UnionPay if we ever want to decouple from Swift.

Of course. The moment a government feels threatened, it will show you ‘the violence inherent in the system’.

Let’s be honest, that’s true in every country where the government has real power. The moment you’re an actual threat to those in power, you’ll get shut down.

Yes, Gigguk tryinv to explain Fate chronology. I think it’s this one.

The bias is real. China gets the best stuff despite us being their biggest market.

Isn’t it the one that shoots black holes?

In bee and ant societies, all decisions are made by adult workers through chemical voting. (Queens, larvae and drones don’t get a vote, though.)

I think it would be more correct to say that quality control in Chinese science is very poor. I have seen top quality research, and I have also seen crap that should not have been published at all. But the sheer quantity of output means that the next big discovery in <insert field> will be from China.

OSTP is focused on removing regulations to science and tech bc they argue they are slowing us down in the AI race against China.

I don’t work on AI, but in my field I have seen the insane speed and scale of Chinese research. Now I’m from a developing country; the US can probably give better funding than we can, but I am inclined to agree that Chinese science does benefit from easier and better funding and a faster administrative process.

AI data in China is very poor likely bc of the lack of regulations

The big problem for AI research in China seems to be a shortage of high-end GPUs due to the trade wars. China is very strong in maths and comp sci, and they are finding workarounds, but it is still a pretty hard barrier.

Amazon/Bezos is probably getting some sweet federal kick backs

I think it’s more a threat against employees. The robots can be used as scabs.

which, until Jan. 2025, was one area that the U.S. had unquestionably dominated China

China had more scientists and papers well before this year. And China dominates particularly in fields like maths, computer science and manufacturing.

they are indeed going to try to replace scientists with robots

I can actually think of a lot of uses for robots in research. And, of course, there are a lot of robots in labs already; they just don’t look like humans.

but 6nm without EUV?

I read elsewhere that 5nm was already done (in the lab, not on industrial levels), and they’re planning on 3nm by 2026.

The workaround seems to be to use particle accelerators instead of EUV machines. More expensive and with lower yield, but it’ll do the job.

127,0,0,1

No, India.

Afghanistan, Tajikistan and most of Kyrgyzstan are mountainous. The route is going just north of this range.

They violently suppressed protests (and quietly suppressed political opponents). I’m not saying they’re good people. I’m saying they’re the least bad option.