Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
> Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea.
is just bollocks.
> On 21 May 1992 the Supreme Soviet of Russia declared 1954 transfer of Crimea as having "no legal force", because it was adopted "in violation of the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Russian SFSR and legislative process", but because subsequent legislation and the 1990 Russo-Ukrainian treaty constituted that fact
I talk about people, not government. Unfortunately it's two different things. And of course I don't mean 100% of people. But percentage wise - you wouldn't say that majority wanted to "get it back". And that's my point - leaders less and less represent the people.
As for the government - your are absolutely on point. And I don't disagree.
I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
I lived 15 years in The Netherlands and 3 years ago moved to Germany.
Back in NL I used to complain about trains being late...
Boy oh boy was I not ready for Germany and Deutsche Bahn. I heard stories, but it was so absurd at times that I treated them as comical acts.
Then I traveled long distance on DB...
- trains being late by 15-40 minutes is NORMAL. It's included. At this point I feel like it's even planned.
- the "thrown out in the middle of nowhere" happens! Ruthlessly. Operationally. With zero empathy or guidance. One minute you traveled inside the train approaching your destination another minute you are on a station in some village, knowing nothing about "why?" And "what is next?"
I still take trains - but I do not plan any appointments on arrival. As arrival is theoretical and not guaranteed. I just take a gamble and sink hours into the journey. Read books. Watch movies.
P.s. I am surprised that DB is not held more accountable for the absolutely shit service they provide.
And being delayed for 15-40 minutes, getting thrown out in the middle of nowhere, or having to continue by bus is an inconvenience for most people, but a nightmare for people with disabilities. Imagine being in a wheelchair, having a digestive condition (Crohn, IBS, etc.), or some sort of anxiety. I imagine that there are groups of people in Germany that simply do not travel anymore.
It is an area where proper governance is failing. I don't know about Germany, but in The Netherlands, Dutch law requires at least 90% of the trains to be on time (less than 5 minutes delay). If national train company do not reach those numbers, they are fined and I think in an extreme case they can lose their concession.
NS is state-owned so all fines are just money transfer between two branches of the government. Also, they know that "the trains fail with current amount of public funding, I wonder if less funding will improve the situation" is not good logic. Therefore there won't be any actual fines.
> and I think in an extreme case they can lose their concession
And then what? Most of the country will be left without trains? The company will be dissolved and replaced by the Chinese? Not gonna happen.
> Dutch law requires at least 90% of the trains to be on time (less than 5 minutes delay
Yes, however, any train delayed more than 30 minutes gets canceled entirely and doesn't get counted in the statistics. The train this article is talking about would not be registered late under Dutch terms (though it probably wouldn't have traveled comically far without stopping).
Not saying Dutch trains are as bad as German trains, but applying the same laws won't fix DB's problems.
> P.s. I am surprised that DB is not held more accountable for the absolutely shit service they provide.
That's the famous German efficiency, not to waste time on things that were not done or caused by being inefficient in the first place. There's no point in wasting time on improving some process, fax machines still work, don't they?
The accountability part is what makes me more angry. I get to lose so many (maybe hundreds?) of hours a year because of how bad DB works. Meanwhile the executives at DB get their nice boni each year and absurdly high wages for what they do... which is consistently worsening the train experience year after year. Probably none of them even use the train.
Alastair is on my S tier for sci-fi. Read so much of him. But didn't read Eversion. Adding it!
In your reading journey, which other authors/books have similar grand space scale as how Alastair writes? I mean, there are a lot, I know, but some overdo it and others oversimplify it. I find Alastair striking perfect balance of being "hardcore" in a way, but still making sense:)
Somehow I grew up with the expectation that coffee in US is exceptional everywhere. I guess from movies, pop culture - just how much coffee is part of American daily life.
Then later in life, when I traveled to US as an independent adult (after EU coffee culture upbringing), for work, and embraced the local coffee culture... I had a big disassociation between what my mind thought about how coffee in US should be and what it actually was.
I realized that majority of positive feedback about coffee drinks was based on all those other things people put into coffee...syrups, chocolate, marshmallows, cinnamon, milk, etc. Etc.
I feel like this tech always misses real life usecases. I mean yes sure we do watch movies... But are you really going to sit in the headset for 2 hours straight. It's physically... Biologically(?) Uncomfortable.
Then when they say - explore Google Maps - ok. Fun. But for what? 10 minutes? How prominent is that need/activity in our life?
All usecases that Apple and now Google/Samsung showcase are "imaginary", wishful thinking usecases. They don't stick. They are more like "party-tricks" than something that can integrate into our lives and fill in a certain gap.
I’ve been in XR for a decade and there’s a big gap between people that make the headsets and those that use them. The actual use cases are too niche for the big companies to care long term so they have to invent narratives that don’t manifest. IMO, Valve focusing a headset in the best possible gaming experience is the only one well positioned for an honest play in the space.
> But are you really going to sit in the headset for 2 hours straight. It's physically... Biologically(?) Uncomfortable.
TBF sitting still in a dark room fixating in the same direction for 2 hours straight is also uncomfortable. Either the movie captures your attention and you bear with it, or you take breaks.
Keeping an headset on for hours is fine if you fit it properly (get used to it), and for the movie use case in particular you don't need to be sitting, which can make it way more comfortable that the traditional experience.
Now it's clearly for people who lust for something they don't have right now. If you're 100% happy with doing everything on your phone for instance, it won't be for you. Same way you wouldn't even care for a laptop or desktop computer I guess.
Fair enough. Though standing and watching a move is also possible. But also in VR/AR you can't have a movie night with a group of people. Though I'm not sure such things even happen anymore (movie nights with friends).
I do feel a certain level of "bigger" commitment when you are in VR/AR. The content follows you. The current way of consuming content is a bit more transactional and has clear boundaries. You want to see a reel - you got to do physical activity (pick up the phone, unlock, launch an app, scroll.. Etc.).
When content "follows you", delivered to you directly as any moment in time - I just have this itchy feeling that we become more dedicated to the consumption of that content. It's an ads dream world!
Thinking of it in levels of commitment sounds right to me, and IMHO most people will want the minimum commitment. The phone thing was something I've been thinking about a lot as we're getting better folding phones.
For instance less and less people care to look at photos on other supports, printing or checking them on a bigger screens now requires some dedication or special motivation. In that regard the Vision Pro's 3D photos feature makes for nice demos, but the number of people that will see it as something missing in their lives right now must be ridiculously low.
> It's an ads dream world!
Nah, they don't need that. My bank statements now have ads inserted between some of the lines, inside the app. Not checking my statements isn't an option and the shitty website won't save me, so I'm already cooked.
My wife and I have actually spent a good deal of time in a couple of street view type apps for the Quest, in multiplayer. It’s fun to “go back” to places we’ve vacationed and try to trace our steps. It’d be better if street view cameras captured stereoscopic 3d, though.
It's quite obvious that these devices are a prototype for some eventual immersive AR glasses. Sure, they are currently bulky and heavy and have poor battery life and block your face. But these companies hope to eventually iterate all of that away.
This is the groundwork. But I don't know if they have a larger vision (pun intended) other than "oh shit, the smartphone industry has been conquered and now sees diminishing returns, we need something else to generate revenue".
That's actually true. You are absolutely right. Computers used to be a size of a bedroom. So yeah, this is not the end game at all.
I would think that the most ultimate end state would be (sci-fi mode ON) some kind of implants, retina projections... It's ridiculous to say this things, but best form factor is to get the value without any form:)
Exercise works well enough too. If shadow boxing in a stinky gym for 2h is grating to you, doing it in VR will have a better chance of success in the long run.
It's often frowned upon but yes. Porn is a very strong usecase where VR offers substantial improvement over existing tech. If it wasn't such a taboo these things would be flying off the shelves. It really feels like you are there especially when you get a toy that can synchronise to the video.
Flight and racing sims are another one but they are obviously a lot more niche.
The solar array is 4 km by 4 km. The whole Earth, with its 6400 km radius, only gets hit by a Prius-sized asteroid once per year. So the risks are much lower. I guess the array may be hit by many micro-asteroids though, but it should be possible to engineer some level of tolerance for that.
Yeah.. right after writing the comment I went on to get my frame of reference a bit adjusted about the sizes of everything...:) Risks are very small! So small that it's not even worth worrying about it too much. The whole cooling/heat transfer reality check is way more critical here than anything else indeed.
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
reply