It is interesting to me, as an Australian, that it almost seems like Osama Bin Laden won. The fall of the US commenced when they let the fear in, and that was September 2001.

I occasionally "joke" that it was 9-11 where we shifted timelines to the alternate universe. 1 minute Fukuyama announces the end of history and our future will consist of abundance and TV and shopping, the next...

NTS is truly excellent yes.

The streaming app algorithms are bland as hell, built for people who just want noise in the background.

NTS and Radio6, genuinely enough to expose me to new things

The verge does have lawyers on staff (obviously, as does any media organisation of a certain size). I would be sure they have consulted with them, but there is also a story in this.

You can work freely and get access to Medicare (and vice-versa) so they’re more-or-less citizens anyway.

I'm pretty sure Kiwis can't vote in Aussie elections though. And they can be deported back to NZ.

Not really. More like a permanent resident, which is still pretty nice. In the past they were closer to citizens (and many older NZers who come over can be grandfathered into these privileges to one extent or another, with some extra red tape), but that has more to do with the legacy of the Commonwealth than current agreements.

A classical virus, from the good old days. None of this botnet/bitcoin mining in the background nonsense.

I've always wanted to make a virus like those of the olden days. I wouldn't do anything malicious with it, but maybe I would deploy it to a friends computer if it wasn't very destructive. What resources are there to learn about viruses?

On the Atari ST we had a boot sector virus that inverted the mouse Y-axis after some random time.

So annoying.

It definitely is less important / visible to some people. I have a 175Hz screen at home and a 120Hz iPhone, but I use a 60Hz iPad and displays at work and if I am not focusing on it I simply do not notice the difference.

I didn’t understand iPads for years. As a half engineer half email monkey, doing work on them is still next to impossible, especially with nerfed versions of Office applications.

But, they are excellent for media consumption, particularly reading and marking up PDFs. I am able to focus while reading in a way I cannot on a computer. Procreate is amazing (drawing brushes with a pressure sensitive pen and layer/mask support all in one). Great for playing Civ on a flight. And it does all those things in a comfortable form factor while being fundamentally a pleasant device to use.

All that considered, the iPad Air is not that expensive, and it will probably last you a decade before it needs replacing.

Or your dog eating the AirTag with the button battery inside it

Important for what? Google and anthropic's models are already better, and google actually makes money, and both are US companies. What strategic relevance is there to Open AI?

We will miss Sam’s irresistible puppy eyes

They are huge in Australia too. And the advice basically everyone gives is "if you're going electric, you'd be crazy not to consider BYD first".

A couple of years ago the only notable EVs you'd see were Teslas, now you'd see at least 2-3x as many BYDs.

BYD, Geely, ZeekR, Kia, Hyundai, Mini, MG see them all around, more than Teslas (inner city Melbourne).

Also noticing that a lot of the rideshare/taxis are going EV quickly. I'm guessing the much lower maintenance and service requirements are outweighing any "range" issues, plus the trade-in value is irrelevant with warranties covering the batteries etc.

I do like that BYD cars are opinionated which is a feature that is somewhat lacking in modern cars.

>opinionated

I'm intrigued. What do you mean?

Opinionated in this context usually means “doing their own thing” or “trying again from basics” instead of following the herd and being like everyone else.

The standard new house isn’t opinionated - a custom build with features not normally seen could be.

Opinionated usually results in love it or hate it style design - unless they happen on something that just becomes standard.

The original Jobs iPhone was opinionated - an all touchscreen design went against the common “knowledge” that a physical keyboard was the way to go.

I was always stuck by how different all the cars in the BYD line are. There are some pretty bold styling and fitout choices between the models.

I have mostly driven BMW and Toyota sedan and fwd's. And as you progress in car price and size its a matter of getting more features, and a better version over the cheaper model.

The BYD's all seem really different,

Isn't that the opposite of being opinionated? In software I've heard "opinionated" about programs that limit configurability in favor of one fits all default. I believe it was Ruby on Rails which popularized the term.

For cars, I guess Henry Ford's anecdotal comment that "you can have any color you like as long as it's black" was a form of opinionated design. If BYDs cars are all different, surely they're less opinionated?

Instead of having a bland, don’t-take-any-strong-decision, please-every-one design ("un opinionated"), each car has its own very distinct design ("opinionated").

You could say that at a brand level, they are equally "opinionated" because the average car of each brand is average, but the OP argues that BYD does it by sampling N very distinct points from the car distribution, and other by sampling N times the same average point.

> In software I've heard "opinionated" about programs that limit configurability in favor of one fits all default

While this is one form of opinionated, it really just means that they are doing their own thing different from the other established players. This could mean MORE configurability in some cases. Another poster also said it, but opinionated just means that they have taken a stand in product design (features, looks, usability, etc) that they think it correct and it does not bow to 'the herd'. IMO, an opinionated design is neither good nor bad, but it is respected by me.