What a run of bad luck for Ukraine, starting with Trump's re-election! If their luck continues to run out like this, Orban could also get re-elected and the calculated and risky shit-storm Ukraine has kicked off with Hungary (in the hopes that it will tilt the election in favour of Hungary's opposition) will really blowback on them.
The EU is already preparing if Orban is re-elected. They are working on 5 different options with the last one being Hungary ejected from the EU. Highly unlikely but they still have it as an option. What is incredible is they have a state that is doing everything it can to give Russia control over all of Europe and they seem almost indifferent.
Indifference is the right word. America thinks Europe is one country. In reality my country has had no economic or cultural ties with Hungary since the Roman empire and couldn't care less.
Is China really dependent on middle-east oil? I read that they had been diversifying in preparation for an energy resource fight for some time now. For example, they've massively invested in Solar power generation, are building a 300-400 billion dollar gas pipeline from Russia, already buy a lot of oil to from Russia, and also purchased from Venezuela (though how that's going now is anybody's guess). They also have a good relationship with most of the players in the middle-east and helped repair ties between the Saudis and the Iranians.
Iran is also playing its own Uno card here by saying that it would consider allowing some oil and gas shipments through the Strait if they have been bought with Chinese Yuan, than the US dollar. ( The Islamic Republic may grant safe passage to oil tankers if the cargo is traded in Chinese yuan - https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/iran-allow-chinese-ships-hormu... ).
I've never heard the expression "to play one's Uno card." Is this a play on "to play one's Trump card"? I can understand why this phrasing could cause confusion, but want to make sure I'm not missing something.
Trump attacked Iran thinking that this would somehow be good for the US, except it's weakening the petrodollar because it's pushed Iran to simply accept Yuan for oil.
This is particularly funny if you consider petrodollar to be a bad deal for US, not a good one. Ironically, if yuan becomes new petroleum currency, it might hurt Chinese long term.
USD reserve = print USD for everything liquidity to sustain debt financed existence where Triffin hollows out industry, and financialize everything because having stupid amount of liquidity incentivizes certain behaviors.
Petro-yuan = PRC gives swap lines to trusted partners to buy oil denominated in yuan in exchange for things like resources. Hormuz ships ~1 trillion USD worth energy that needs "swapping" - incidentally PRC imports around ~2-3 trillion, more than enough to cover.
So think petro-yuan = PRC gives trusted countries with resources that PRC bonds credit lines to buy yuan denominated energy (possibly at discount), in return they guarantee PRC resources or other commercial/geopolitical arrangements. It will be narrow, not like USD brrrting reserves.
This benefits PRC because get to have leverage over "need" transactions (countries need energy to survive, it's no negotiate) while US keeps supporting "want" transactions by reserve debt servicing blackhole that US cannot extricate itself from until it debases / technical defaults. PRC best game plan is... assume privileged part of exorbitant privilege, while leaving US the exorbitant.
The problem with that plan is that no one wants to trade hard commodities for a currency that can’t be spent. One part of the dollars appeal is that it spends the world over. The sanctioned countries frequently have more liberal access to dollars than to unsanctioned yuan.
So no one is going to take up a lot of yuan trade unless that changes or they are forced to.
But that puts China in a bind. Liberalizing their currency is going to require very careful and slow actions, China threads this needle now in a very fraught way. If they openly start trading oil at any real size in yuan that will break their peg as you’ll be able to trade through the oil markets.
This is the main reason there isn’t more petro yuan already, it’s bad for China.
> The problem with that plan is that no one wants to trade hard commodities for a currency that can’t be spent. One part of the dollars appeal is that it spends the world over.
> So no one is going to take up a lot of yuan trade unless that changes or they are forced to.
Related on the “forced to”point, this is where Russia is stuck with its crude oil sales to India where the payments have been made to it in Indian Rupees. There’s almost nothing that Russia can do with the Indian Rupee. This is a huge and growing problem because India’s imports from Russia eclipse its exports to Russia by more than 10 times. [1]
Unlike China, a country whose exports to other countries dwarfs their exports. The yuan is much more valuable than the rupee (which is turning to trash with each passing month as a net effect of trade wars and oil crises).
You can buy from China though. And China is the largest import trading partner for the majority of countries in the world. They literally don't need to do anything to prop up a "petro-yuan".
You can’t largely. At least not with offshore yuan. To do that you have to go through the controlled settlement channels to get onshore yuan. That’s tightly controlled to protect the peg.
So no one is going to use a controlled currency for a hard liquid commodity. So if China wants petro yuan they have to liberalize that, which will break their peg.
China could have more international trade in the yuan before all of Americas recent misadventures. But that has cast consequences for their economy, and possibly the ruling elites power structures.
Saudi Arabia was literally negotiating with China for payments in yuan for petroleum way before the war started, in 2023. The Gulf countries' largest trading partner is China - such a transaction is effectively a barter enabling programme. Russia and now Iran already accept yuan.
The mainland vs offshore renminbi restrictions disappear in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. where most mainland Chinese trading companies and otherwise have offices anyways. Trading offshore to onshore renminbi becomes their problem, one that they are fairly accustomed to.
The negotiations were literally about how to manage the currency risk to Riyadh. And none of the offshore trading houses are handling the currency transactions at the size necessary to handle large oil transactions.
This is as near an iron law as there is economics, you can’t keep a peg and have a large trade in a large liquid commodity market. China is trying to slowly thread this needle and they can get away with it with Iran and Russia because they are approaching vassal status because the petrodollars are closed to them. Everyone in the world can see this and wants to avoid it.
If you are an oil producer what you want is to diversify your currency risk. Right now China is _preventing_ this, because there is no way for them to become a major player in that market without huge impact on their economy and probably their political system.
One big thing that has prevented CNY from becoming a reserve currency is that China has explicitly said it wants to preserve its ability to heavily and suddenly restrict capital flows in and out of China. If all of a sudden you can't redeem CNY outside of China inside it that makes it a very poor storage of value.
Literally buy from PRC... most of worlds largest trade partner. That's why the system should work, it's closed loop. And we know world aktually fine with yuan denominated trade since PRC increased yuan settlement from 10 to >50% in a few years after US went sanction happy. PRC basically super costco, apart from chips and commercial aviation (both coming) they sell everything country needs for modernity, at discount.
They do not need to liberalize currency. They just need to have stuff people want, and leverage to force them to transact in PRC preferred currency. Previously this was hard, PRC had goods, and affordable prices = reduce friction/switching cost vs USD liquidity, but USD liquidity still made USD transaction preferred. PRC had no leverage for others to transact in yuan.
But in persistent high global energy environment, if PRC controls basically global supply of cheap renewables... and 30% of GCC oil vs Iran enforcing petro-yuan, they have stupid leverage to snow ball system. Again key is this for 30% of GCC oil exports if Iran locks down (big if), it's not global petro-yuan, it's Costco membership only access petro-yuan.
30% of global oil is inelastic existential survival leverage, if PRC wanted to charge in blowjobs countries would pay in blowjobs, currency liberalization doesn't matter when selling water in desert.
For that 30% control number to make any sense you have to believe that: the gulf states are going to allow Iran to control their existential oil trade long term, that they will do so in the face of a currency getting manipulated adversarially against them, that no manufacturing bases can be built up to be alternatives and that none of that is going to have major impacts on the economy or political elites in China.
All of that happening with the worlds biggest oil producer, its second biggest manufacturer, who is food independent and has the worlds most powerful military just lets it happen. And no shooting war breaking out between them.
I’m betting on slow currency liberalization and a transition to a multi currency petroleum industry and subsequent inefficiencies in global trade. But feel free to bet how you want.
I am not betting on one or other happening, I am simply stating, the downstream effect of Iran being able to hold onto Hormuz, i.e. by outlasting US political will create conditions for GCC petro-yuan. Which may not be out of question because we're not in nothing ever happens world anymore.
> make any sense
GCC petro-yuan scenario is predicated on BIG IF that Iran can control Hormuz oil. Rest is the downstream logic for ~10 years, i.e. before any alternative buildout/pivot by GCC states to some how insulate... which apart from Saudi, they might not (too small). This also why PRC hasn't exactly enthusiastically signed up despite IR offer, because it would burn GCC bridge when IR fate uncertain. But if alternative is IR can hold hormuz hostage, PRC would rather participate in petro-yuan than not, at which point having priority access to energy, possibly at discount is net win. Note in this case IR as SLOC guard dog actually has leverage over PRC, gating energy access also offer PRC cannot refuse.
> US
Hence big if, if US has appetite and capability to break Iran, and it matters US settlement/conditions, because if US reasserts control over Hormuz oil and tries to throttle PRC oil as victory, then PRC may go all in on Iran support. Situation is fluid, the wild card is in fact US or ISR deciding to simply break GCC oil. There is still plenty of room for escalation and shenanigans.
Yes, but for a consumption addicted society like the US, an abrupt end to the petrodolar would be an incredibly traumatic event.
Think about it, every single mother fucking year, the US roughly buys 1 trillion dollars more on services and goods from the rest of the world, than it sells.
It has this privilege/curse basically because the US dollar IS the world's global commerce and finance currency.
The petrodollar confers a huge advantage to the US, which is the whole point of it. It soaks up liquidity and allows the US to export inflation which allows it to be in the insanely profitable business of printing money. An argument could be made that this is corrupting and economically distorting to society resulting in a net negative but there is no guarantee that the same corruption would undermine China in a timely manner. I think the effect would be rather muted provided that the US remains world hegemon but if the US would lose the petrodollar and credible force projection at the same time we will shift from the current looting stages of collapse to the free for all stage of collapse. Or put another way, from a managed decline to an unmanaged decline.
It's not advantage, it makes for artificial demand for your currency, which completely screws up all the relevant metrics and makes you unable to actually inflate the currency when getting less competitive.
We are assuming a resource curse on steroids, the ability to sell the ‘resource’ is used to distort the economy and pay for the cost of running an empire. The US chooses to do this because it is controlled by those who benefit from this not for the long term benefit of the country.
Saying it’s not an advantage is to assume those in control want to have manufacturing in the US, while such noises are made there is very little action beyond capricious crony capitalism tariffs that no normal business can possibly rely on.
They very much want to have manufacturing, since it’s a requirement for war. They just don’t realize it. Plus, it is a conflict between all the extra money to spend and long term state welfare.
These two statements don’t mesh “They very much want” and “They just don’t realize it.”
It seems both you and I agree that manufacturing is an essential component to war-fighting and the health of a nation, but I think it is safe to say that you and I have effectively no control over what the US does.
>Ironically, if yuan becomes new petroleum currency, it might hurt Chinese long term.
Agreed. Which is why the Chinese do NOT want their currency to become the Petrodollar or world's reserve currency. They know that that is what destroyed US Manufacturing. China wants to maintain their manufacturing dominance. They've seen what de-industrialization has done to the US.
How are you connecting the petrodollar and US manufacturing? US manufacturing was destroyed because companies closed their factories in the US and used factories in China because labor was cheaper and they were less regulated.
Under normal conditions, when your economy becomes less competitive, your currency gets depreciated, increasing competitiveness.
Unless of course everybody is forced to buy your currency to get an essential resource. This causes:
- the currency to maintain value better
- puts you in position of other countries having to maintain a trade surplus with you so they can actually purchase said resource
- the oil producers end up with great amounts of your currency, which they have to spend, getting a political foothold in your country.
Petrodollar almost certainly was devastating to US economy. And like most resource curses, it's like a drug - you need to stop taking it to get better, but it will hurt as hell.
Petrodollar creates demand for dollars. This is demand that no other currency gets. That's why US production is expensive vs other countries. China labor is cheaper and it is less regulated, but the petrodollar exacerbates the problem.
I hadn’t even considered that. Don’t know why that comment is greyed out or downvoted.
It’s a static site that hasn’t been updated since 2016—- so it’s .. since been moved to cloudflare r2 where it’s getting a $0.00 bill, and it now has a disallow / directive. I’m not sure if it’s being obeyed because the cf dash still says it’s getting 700-1300 hits a day even with all the anti bot, “cf managed robots” stuff for ai crawlers in there.
The content is so dry and irrelevant I just can’t even fathom 1/100th of that being legitimate human interest but I thought these things just vacuumed up and stole everyone’s content instead of nailing their pages constantly?
> they can’t be bothered to get a developer account and run a one line command
I applaud that they didn't kowtow to Apple's attempt to exercise control over their app and extort money from them. Why should we accede to policies that are designed to exploit us developers?
We developers add the real value to a platform. Don't believe me? Look up on how popular Sailfish OS or Windows Mobile OS is and why they failed or struggle. Apple should be grateful to this developer that they seek to add value to their platform instead of trying to figure out money grubbing ways on how to control and exploit them. (Of course, ultimately it is the users of the platform who are exploited - all charges by Apple are ultimately bore by them when they purchase an app through the App Store).
It's just sad that whether you are a user or a developer, Apple Fanbois would rather (ignorantly) place Apple's interest over their own consumer rights.
> It's just sad that whether you are a user or a developer, Apple Fanbois would rather (ignorantly) place Apple's interest over their own consumer rights.
You think notarizing an app is "placing Apple's interest over" our own?
Yes, how notarisation works currently on the Apple platforms is designed more for Apple's benefits than an Apple developer's or user's interest. When notarization can only be done through Apple, they have undue control - for e.g. they can ban any app that you create on their platform. Bad for malwares for sure, but not good when some government or Apple decides they don't like your app. Remember that all App Stores apps are ultimately signed by Apple, not by the developer who creates it (the developer signs and uploads the app, and Apple replaces the signature with its own). Self-signing an app also require you to get a "free" developer certificate through Apple by first signing up to their developer program and agreeing to all their overbearing terms (which they use to force themselves as a middle-man, to exploit both their developers and users). A self-signed notarized apps generates two sets of hashes - one which is stored in the app and one in Apple databases for "verification".
Thus, notarization also acts as a way for Apple to spy on its user and determine what apps they run - both when you install from the App Store or when you install it from outside the App Store. The way the whole process works, open source softwares (which are popular and compete with Apple's own app and other paid apps but often cannot bear the unnecessary burden of jumping through Apple's hoops) are also tarnished with all the popups about security threats, thus discouraging their use amongst non-technical users. This is great for Apple ofcourse because they can't make money of free open source developers (unless of course, they use their code to make their own applications, which they have no qualms about).
Imagine this too - How would you like it if Apple allowed you to view websites in Safari (or other macOS browsers) only if they had an SSL certificate from Apple?
So it is a disingenuous argument that people here are being "stupid" for complaining about Notarization. It's Apple forcing itself as the middle-man here and then exploiting its developers and users that's the issue.
Generally speaking, raw-milk cheeses are much safer to consume than fresh raw dairy milk. However, the dairy in question is a garbage company that has been responsible for numerous outbreaks in the past.
Raw milk is safe to drink too, if it's been kept correctly. I grew up on a dairy farm, and as you might imagine we didn't buy milk from the store when we had our own right there. Never once did I get sick, nor did any of the other farmers we knew doing the same thing. The risk of getting sick is higher, but unless you're not practicing proper hygiene it'll probably be ok.
I am all for requiring raw milk to be prominently disclosed, but banning it entirely is foolishness. Let people make their own choices for the level of risk they are comfortable with; don't make paternalistic decisions for them.
This isn't a binary distinction -- safe vs unsafe. Things you put in your body have a risk profile. The risk profile of raw milk is much higher than pasteurized milk, regardless of how hygienic you think you're being. Cows step in mud, their own feces, the feces of other animals, dirty water, and many other things that can splash up and onto (and into) their udders, contaminating their milk with pathogens.
Letting people make their own choices always has its limits, regardless of what people say (rather casually on the Internet). When nearly all health systems in the world work through the healthy subsidizing the unhealthy, we should be attempting to limit preventable illness.
In any case, I don't think there's any country or state that bans drinking raw milk. If you're on a farm and you want to drink your own milk, go ahead. Just don't claim it's safe enough to sell, because it really isn't.
When we say "safe" it's a regulatory statement about _certainty_ not about any given person's activity. We know pasteurized milk is safe because the process produces a high probability of a safe product.
When we don't do that, it's called raw. From there, we don't need to investigate anything else, whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in 10, or whatever. We know that because it's unprocessed, it's unsafe.
It's always curious when people bring anecdotes to a discussion like this as if what their family did with raw milk is perfectly emulated everywhere.
Same thing happened with surgery in the early century: doctors wouldn't wash their hands because they had some base assumptions about what caused diesease.
In the end, countering these anecdotes rarely work.
Since you are knowledgable about this, do you have any idea what happened to Mirasol technology? I was fascinated by those colour e-paper like displays, and disappointed when plans to manufacture it was shelved. Then I learnt Apple purchased it but it looks more like a patent padding purchase than for tech development as nothing has come out of it form Apple too. Is it in some way still being developed or parts of its research tech being used in display development?
Being a key technology architect for it (not the core inventor), I know all about it, and then some more!
I cannot however talk publicly about it. :-(
It has been a disappointment for me as well. I had worked on it for nearly eight years. The idea was so interesting--using thin-film interference for creating images is akin to shaping Newton's rings into arbitrary images, something which even Newton would not have imagined! The demos and comparisons we had shown to various industry leaders and sometimes publicly were often instantly compelling. The people/engineers in the team were mostly the best I have ever worked with, and with whom I still maintain a great connection. But unfortunately, there were problems (not saying how much tech how much people) that were recognized by some but never got (timely) addressed. And a tech like it does not exist till date.
I do not think anything on it is being developed further.
The earliest of the patents would have expired by now.
Liquavista, Pixtronics, etc., have been alternative display technologies that also ultimately didn't make the impact desired, AFAIK.
Meanwhile, LCDs developed high pixel densities (which led to pressures on mirasol tech too), Plasma got sidelined. EInk displays have since then made good progress, though, in my opinion, are still far from colors and speeds that mirasol had. And of course, OLED, Quantum dots, ...
My fantasy display would be some kind of reflective-mode display that can passively show static images like e-ink, have partial updates like MIP LCD in wearables, response times like modern LCD and AMOLED, and "super-real" contrast/gain.
I.e. actually do wavelength conversion to not just reflect a narrow-pass filtered version of the ambient light, but convert that broad spectrum energy into the desired visuals, so it isn't always inherently dimmer than the environment. I can only imagine this being either:
1. some wild materials science stuff that manages interference
2. some wild materials science stuff that controls multi-photon fluorescence
3. some wild materials science stuff to fuse photoelectric and electroemissive functions in the same panel. i.e. not really passive but extremely low loss active system to double-convert the ambient light that can follow the power curve of available light
>> My fantasy display would be some kind of reflective-mode display that can passively show static images like e-ink, have partial updates like MIP LCD in wearables, response times like modern LCD and AMOLED, and "super-real" contrast/gain.
What about cost? :-) It is an important factor too outside of the fantasy world and can kill new display technologies. The latter often suffer from yield issues (dead pixels, etc.) during early phases of R&D which can make initial costs be still higher as compared to already matured technologies.
>> I.e. actually do wavelength conversion to not just reflect a narrow-pass filtered version of the ambient light, but convert that broad spectrum energy into the desired visuals
Reflecting filtered version of the ambient light, if done efficiently, brings the display to as bright as other natural/common objects around. So it should be good enough for most purposes, even in a somewhat darker ambient with eyes adjusted.
It would not however be attention-grabbing by being brighter than those surrounding objects. So many users, often used to seeing brighter emissive displays, still do not pick those as a preference.
>> I can only imagine this being either:
>> ...
Another way to make it look brighter is to reflect more light towards the users/eyes while capturing it from broader directions. This would compromise on viewing angle (unless more fantasy tech is brought in), but I think this in itself take the display to wow levels.
Well, the reflectivity of color MIP LCD is not very satisfactory. It is barely adequate, even for people like me who are fans. This is both because of the narrow-band RGB filtering and the inherent losses of the polarization-based switching method. Even the "white" state is discarding most polarizations of the ambient light, and then the darker colors are even blocking that.
My fantasy is having the reflectivity be at least as good as good white paper, and with deep contrast too.
It also needs to be brighter in practice than normal objects because, no matter what, it will have to overcome some glare from whatever protective glass and touch sensing layers there are over the actual display.
>> Well, the reflectivity of color MIP LCD is not very satisfactory. It is barely adequate, even for people like me who are fans. This is both because of the narrow-band RGB filtering and the inherent losses of the polarization-based switching method. Even the "white" state is discarding most polarizations of the ambient light, and then the darker colors are even blocking that.
Yes, that's right. A typical color LCD transmits only about 5-10% of the light for white because of all those factors.
>> My fantasy is having the reflectivity be at least as good as good white paper, and with deep contrast too.
That exactly was our benchmark for mirasol development. We used to measure best-in-class color prints for color gamut, brightness, contrast, etc.
mirasol did not use polarizers or RGB filters. An advanced architecture (that I was leading) also avoided RGB subpixels, something which very few alternative technologies can do [1].
>> It also needs to be brighter in practice than normal objects because, no matter what, it will have to overcome some glare from whatever protective glass and touch sensing layers there are over the actual display.
There are also optical means that can nearly get rid of glare, if cost were not an issue. I have seen demo coatings that make the glass practically disappear -- we would repeatedly walk into it if it were used on a glass door.
-------
[1] Liquavista had Cyan-Magenta-Yellow subpixels vertically stacked. A new Eink architecture uses multiple colored pigments within the same cell but now needs sophisticated mechanisms to control them independently.
>Perhaps you joke, but does Tucker really have a chance at the Presidency?
People had the same attitude about Trump. Tucker has millions of followers and regularly gets more viewers than CNN. He is also one of the only talking heads that isn't on Israel's propaganda payroll. I think he'd actually go far in the primaries if he ran. Whoever wins next will be whoever is the least cozy with Israel. Democrats still polling at all-time lows despite this. I think whoever distances themselves from Israel the most (democrat or republican) is going to be the winner. People see how AIPAC and donors like the Adelsons control our country and force us into wars that don't benefit us. There will absolutely be blow back from this.
While I agree with you that Americans (on both sides) are increasingly getting frustrated with American politicians' near-blind devotion to Israel, it will not translate to public eschewing of Israel in American politics. Elections are still won by money-power, and AIPAC supplies a lot of that.
I don't think so, he's too much of a nerd. He uses too much reasoning in his communication (I am not saying good or bad reasoning) which is not what people want, especially not today. Even someone like Bernie Sanders was successful because he struck a cord, his message was clear and didn't need too much explanation. Tucker is mostly trying to be the smartest person in the room, an intellectual. Too many voters are turned off by this. FWIW I expected Trump to win in 2016 based on similar things.
Yeah, first I thought this is just a BeOS-inspired GUI theme, but there is more to it:
Nexus is Vitruvian's custom Linux kernel subsystem that brings BeOS-style
node monitoring, device tracking, and messaging to Linux — making it
possible to run Haiku applications on a standard Linux kernel.
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