u/LesserAbe

You should watch the documentary "Under the Sun". North Korea agreed to let the director film with the understanding he would follow their directions, almost to the point of following a script. However he secretly kept filming. It's pretty fascinating. https://imdb.com/title/tt5129818/

He's a shit show, but SpaceX is still doing great. They have more launches per year than any other company or country. While they've had multiple launches explode recently, that's their newer larger rocket where they're still working out kinks.

If they can't get that into shape eventually it could be a problem for the company, but their smaller rocket has a great record, reusable, a fraction of the cost of any other launch provider. Right now they're the only game in town for the U.S. getting to the ISS.

I'd love to see Musk ousted, and more importantly to see real competition from other private launch providers. But don't let Musk hate color your view of reality.

Even if you didn't read the article, the op helpfully included the first few lines, which say that although Honda had said they were studying rocket technology, they made no announcements about this launch until it had already occurred.

Interesting article for a few reasons. I didn't realize how much Pakistan was reliant on Chinese military systems.

Very challenging situation. To me seems like the thing to focus on is lack of electoral legitimacy. Maybe I'm using the wrong frame of reference coming from a larger country, but $8 million a year for a country's leadership expenses doesn't seem overly expensive. But I do understand being mad to spend any money on people who haven't been chosen by the country's citizens.

No. Stop being a dick

Yeah, it says they're charging him with something that has a max sentence of five years, seems like it would be a lot heavier if they could show he was planning to take action.

Sure you can. I think it's wrong to murder people for no reason. I say something like "government should avoid baseless murder." Maybe I'm offending people who have deeply held pro murder beliefs, but I'm right and they're wrong.

I'm making a joke here, but to illustrate the principle that just because a country has some tradition or practice doesn't mean it can't be criticized. There is such a thing as objective reality.

And of course we have to recognize that we ourselves can be mistaken about the truth so it's smart to practice a degree of humility and introspection when it comes to people we disagree with. Even so, I'm pretty comfortable saying that laws which imprison people for criticizing a king are counterproductive and harmful to a society.

The reason why free speech is a good idea is because it makes error correction possible. People come at subjects from all different angles, and inevitably someone will misjudge a subject, while a person approaching from another angle has an insight that would be helpful. In other words, people make mistakes, and if it's illegal to point out a mistake it's unlikely to be corrected. I don't follow the Thai monarchy but I'm sure it's made mistakes, and it should be legal to say so.

I don't think there's a lot of those around here. Kind of off-putting because I knew it would be bad, and now have to live it.

Who are you addressing here

Care to share other reliable sources?

Like I just said, I don't think the way things have been going is the way they should be.

Your comment struck me as completely off base, but I thought maybe I'm wrong and did some googling and reading. I learned a few things (check out this Wikipedia), but definitely confirmed that the Haitian gangs are not "security against actual evil". Kidnap for ransom, looting and massacres are not "resistance to occupation".

There's not some alternate state which is being suppressed, it's gangs. Yes, Haiti should rule themselves, and to do that there needs to be security. Not saying the current approach is doing it, or that the U.S. should be the one calling the shots.

Very cool. Thanks for the link!

I've been reading "The Power Broker" where among other things, Bob Moses was building highways in New York and refused to even consider extending the right of way 15 meters to allow for future public transit projects. Glad to hear they're (unsurprisingly) doing it right with the highway plus rail lines.

I think what has made starlink possible at all has been that musk also owns SpaceX so he can launch a shit ton of satellites. No other launch provider can match their cadence, so I'd guess that will be a limiting factor

I can't read Chinese, but looks like the colors represent elevation, not how green an area is.