NXTR

The quote you’re using is from the 2010-2011 peace talks. The reason those broke down is as follows:

Direct talks broke down in late September 2010 when an Israeli partial moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank expired and Netanyahu refused to extend the freeze unless the Palestinian Authority recognized Israel as a Jewish State, while the Palestinian leadership refused to continue negotiating unless Israel extended the moratorium.[3] The proposal was rejected by the Palestinian leadership, that stressed that the topic on the Jewishness of the state has nothing to do with the building freeze. The decision of Netanyahu on the freeze was criticized by European countries and the United States.

In regards to Oslo and the 2014 peace talks:

2014:

A deadline was set for establishing a broad outline for an agreement by 29 April 2014. On the expiry of the deadline, negotiations collapsed, with the US Special Envoy Indyk reportedly assigning blame mainly to Israel, while the US State Department insisting no one side was to blame but that “both sides did things that were incredibly unhelpful.”

Oslo: Both Oslo accords were signed, however,

the interim process put in place under Oslo had fulfilled neither Israeli nor Palestinian expectations.

This led to the Camp David Accords where the main issues and points seemed to be the following:

the refusal of the Palestinians and Arafat to give up the right of return

Judged from the perspective of Palestinians’ and Israelis’ respective rights under international law, all the concessions at Camp David came from the Palestinian side, none from the Israeli side.

the Palestinians starting position was at the 1967 borders, but they were ready to give up Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and parts of the West Bank with Israeli settlements. Further, the Palestinians were willing to implement Right of Return in a way that guaranteed Israel’s demographic interests.

The proposals were, for the most part, verbal. As no agreement was reached and there is no official written record of the proposals, some ambiguity remains over details of the positions of the parties on specific issues.

The talks ultimately failed to reach agreement on the final status issues: Territory, Territorial contiguity, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, Refugees and Palestinian right of return, Security arrangements, Settlements

To summarize the 2010-11 peace talks broke down due to Israel not abiding by the terms of the negotiation. The 2014 talks are debated with more blame seeming to be placed on Israel. The Oslo accords were signed but left unresolved and unfollowed by Israel leading to the camp David accords where the main issue seems to be the right of return for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were displaced. However, who actually ended the talks is still debated.

Here is the original FDA letter to VPX regarding White Heat. The chemical they are focusing on is 4-Amino-2-Methylpentane Citrate also known as 1,3-Dimethylbutylamine, DMBA, 2-amino-4-methylpentane, AMP citrate, and 4-methyl-2-pentanamine (according to the FDA letter). Upon further research, it seems like, although the structure of the compound is similar to an amphetamine, the actual mechanism of action of these and similar compounds, such as DMAA, still isn’t fully known. So it was a bit inaccurate of me to call it an “amphetamine analogue” since they might not work in a similar manner.

There used to be a product called Redline: White Heat from VPX (same people that make bang with the unhinged CEO). It had to be taken off the market because it had an amphetamine analogue in it called AMP Citrate or DMBA.

One scoop of that stuff made me feel like I was going to die. My friend who took Ritalin at the time told me it was more powerful than any other stimulant he had before.

It’s crazy to think this was openly available at health supplement stores for years before the FDA caught wind.

World ending weapon in the form of a child? Never seen that before

Something something Celsius 232.8

It seems like the gaming division of Microsoft was doing just fine over that same period of time.

If the Xbox One was a complete failure then why would Microsoft make the series X/S?

Have you ever thought about why black people are often criminalized or why so many kids grow up without dads? It’s due to centuries of systemic injustices.

Redlining is probably the biggest example. Redlining practices pushed black communities into areas given barely any resources. These places today have rough living conditions and rarely see revitalization efforts that actually uplift the people living there. This continued the years of generational poverty that came after slavery and the repeated destruction of any attempts for black people to get any crumb of prosperity. With little support from the government, combined with poverty, forces some into crime just to put food on the table. Now, with these areas being over-policed, you’ve got a recipe for high arrest rates.

1: Black men are more often caught in this web. It’s not just about being targeted by the police. It’s about the dire living conditions, the lack of support, and then the heavy policing. All this means more black men end up behind bars, leaving families without fathers. The kids from these broken homes? They’re set up for a hard life from the start and some fall into the same cycle.

2: Pulling your kids from public schools and opting for homeschooling restricts their exposure to diverse viewpoints and backgrounds. This is why many who’ve spent time in cities or universities tend to have less conservative views. It’s not about them being molded by others; it’s genuine exposure to diverse experiences and stories. This broadens understanding and breaks down barriers while leading less people to view different races negatively. I’m sharing this not to change your mind, but hoping you’ll see a different perspective, even if you don’t fully agree. Just as you believe in spreading your viewpoint, I believe in the value of diverse exposure. It’s how we learn and grow.

The BLM movement‘s purpose is to highlight the racial injustices black people face everyday in the United States especially in policing. Black neighborhoods are over-policed, their citizens are harassed and in the worst cases murdered in unprovoked situations by police officers. The fact that many people witness these injustices and either remain indifferent or choose to ignore them suggests that black lives do not matter in this country.

Supporting the movement doesn’t mean you automatically think all white people are racist. All it means is that you recognize the racial injustices in society and support people, legislation and the steps it takes to eliminate as many of these as possible. This is why when someone doesn’t support black lives matter, the implication can be viewed as racist. It implies that they wish to keep these injustices ingrained in society. Highlighting the division that still exists in society is the only way to solve these problems. How can you heal the wound if you “won’t even admit the knife is there”?

Ahhh yes the BLM movement, famously known for lynching thousands of people just like the KKK!

Also, the KKK were only fighting to uphold their racist ideals. This is exactly the same as the BLM movement trying to fight against racism.

No false equivalence here!

30% is better than nothing and for the majority of people that number would be much higher (different power mixes and climates). It’s not like power plans have to be converted before we switch to EVs or vice versa. We should be doing everything we can to reduce emissions whether that is making new solar power plants or switching from ICE vehicles to electric.

I will add that EVs don’t actually solve the problem and other solutions like increasing public transportation and shifting away from car culture would have a much greater impact overall. The purpose of EVs wasn’t to “save the environment”, but to sell people more new, expensive vehicles with the illusion that they will save the environment while lining the pockets of those who helped to destroy it. They do help and something is better than nothing, but it still isn’t enough.

Unfortunately, Valve would also have to build a CPU translation layer (Like Rosetta 2) since games run on x86 architectures and snapdragon uses an ARM architecture. The steam deck uses a Zen 2 CPU architecture which is already x86 so there would be little motivation on their part to do this. Currently proton uses wine to convert windows api calls into linux calls. The big thing Proton does is allowing games that use DirectX to run on Vulkan which is natively supported in Linux. So unless Valve makes the Steam Deck 2 with ARM or another company decides to make an x86 to ARM translation layer, then I don’t see something like Proton coming to android any time soon.

If we are talking solely about power usage from the grid then, even in the worst case scenarios, EVs are much cleaner than ICE vehicles.

For example, the average gas car emits around 441g or about .972 pounds worth of CO2 per mile.

For comparison purposes, let’s take the most popular EV currently sold right now which is the model 3 long range as our test case. This car in the worst conditions (cold) goes around 240 miles (a far cry from the 300+ it’s advertised to have I might add) and uses 72kWh to do so. This means, in the worst case scenario, the car is using .3kWh of battery per mile.

Now for the power plant. Let’s use coal as our power source. Coal power emits approximately 2.26 pounds of CO2 per KWh produced. If we take our numbers from earlier, then the model 3 driving in the cold results in .678 pounds of co2 per mile being emitted at the power plant if it is charged using coal power. This is still about 30% less emissions than the ICE vehicle per mile. If the car was powered by natural gas then the percentage grows to around 70%.

Of course there are other factors involved such as other pollutants emitted during power productions (especially when burning coal). However, a lot of these are also produced by ICE vehicles. It’s much easier to have centralized sources of pollution rather than millions of them spread out over the place. Another thing to note is that EVs take more emissions to produce, but is mostly offset over the lifespan of the vehicles due to their low maintenance. EV batteries can also be recycled, though they are usually used in power storage instead of new vehicles.

The performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 GPU is already about 10-20% faster than the A16 chip, depending on the benchmark.

Even if Qualcomm only gives the Gen 3 a 10% performance increase, that is enough to beat or even surpass the A17 in gpu performance (rumors suggest something closer to a 30% increase). The Gen 2 already outcompetes the A16 in GPU power consumption and efficiency as well. This may change with the A17 since it’s on TSMC’s 3N node, however this node has been having issues which is why TSMC introduced the 3NE and 3NP so we will have to wait for power usage numbers from the A17 to see.

Overall I’m disappointed with the improvements between the A16 and A17. 10% on the CPU and 20% on the GPU (due to have 20% more cores) doesn’t seem like the type of upgrade I would expect from switching nodes. Hopefully next year they can do more with the improved N3 nodes. I’m also getting the feeling that Apple is trying to deploy more complex transformer models on their devices which is why we are seeing such a focus on the NPU.

I think you hit on the main point which is that nobody will pour money into developing for android. Apple also has the ability to make deals with companies with Capcom and Ubisoft to ensure games come to their platforms. I can’t see Google doing this since they already “tried” and failed to have a AAA mobile gaming platform with stadia. The only other company with enough motivation and money to bring big games to android is Samsung, but their mobile chips aren’t doing too well (despite their RDNA 2 architecture making it easier to port games).

1: “Guess what happens when there are fewer workers willing to work in a role…?” You’re responding to a hypothetical I’m not making which doesn’t address my argument. I’m advocating fair pay so workers aren’t reliant on inconsistent tips, not banning tipping outright. In my proposal, fair wages means decreased tips wouldn’t deter workers. Your hypothetical keeps pay low with no tips, unlike my proposal. When discussing the potential for restaurants to seize more control over revenue, it’s important to highlight the power of unions and collective bargaining. Unions exist to represent the interests of their members, and in this case, the workers. They provide a structured, legal avenue through which workers can negotiate better pay, benefits, and working conditions. When a union negotiates with a restaurant or a chain, they’re establishing legally binding agreements that outline worker compensation and rights. This ensures that even if prices increase, there is a legal obligation to ensure workers benefit. It’s a mechanism that places a check on the natural inclination of businesses to maximize profits, ensuring workers aren’t shortchanged in the process. Additionally, unions have strike funds and other resources to support workers who are fired or face retaliation for union organizing, as we are seeing with the recent strikes in Hollywood.

2: The notion that tips place power solely in the hands of the workers is a bit misleading. In fact, tips are at the mercy of customers, and, to some extent, the establishment. Factors like ambiance, quality of food, and even factors beyond a server’s control can influence tips. The current reliance on tips effectively offloads the responsibility of ensuring a living wage from the employer to the customer. This shouldn’t be the case. Workers should be guaranteed a livable wage, with tips serving as a bonus for exceptional service. As for the profit margins, it’s an oversimplification to say that restaurants operate strictly on slim margins and can’t afford wage hikes. If that were the case, how do we account for thriving chain restaurants and franchises? There are restaurants that are extremely profitable, and while there may be challenges in the industry, there is certainly room for wage adjustments.

3: Citing the earnings of top-tier restaurant servers as a standard is cherry-picking. The vast majority of servers don’t earn anywhere near that amount. Additionally, the variability and unpredictability of tips don’t disappear simply because some servers in upscale restaurants earn well. And if every server is supposed to find the highest-tipping establishments, then who fills the roles at the lower-tipping places? The logic doesn’t pan out.

4: The claim that high-earning servers wouldn’t want to unionize misses the bigger picture. The vast majority of restaurant workers are not top-tier servers at upscale establishments. They are workers struggling with low wages and unreliable tips. These workers have every reason to come together and unionize to demand better pay and working conditions from restaurant owners. Historically, the groups most affected by an unjust system are often the ones to lead the charge for change. The claim that restaurants would lead this charge contradicts established trends. Restaurants, as profit-driven entities, are unlikely to spearhead efforts that might cut into their profits unless compelled by external pressures – like a strong union.

Tipping isn’t driven by customers, but an unfair system offloading fair pay onto them. Workers shouldn’t have to rely on tips just to get by. The solution is empowering workers to demand fair wages so tipping returns to being a bonus, not a business model.

I am on the Artemis app for Kbin which hasn’t been updated to allow quoting yet so excuse the strange formatting. Each of the following paragraphs will address each point in order.

1: Wages will certainly not adjust if tipping went away, there would just be less workers willing to take those roles. It’s not the workers keeping wages artificially low, it’s the restaurants owners who do. Having workers successfully demand higher wages on an industry wide scale just isn’t feasible without unionization. Sure there may be individual situations where workers actually get a raise but I don’t see this being the norm. Employers do not have to capitulate to raising wages, especially if workers have no other options available to them.

2: Workers can get tipped and be paid fairly. It’s not a zero-sum game. Paying workers a livable wage so they don’t rely on tips is what I consider to be the “winning situation”. Customers can tip if they want to which means more money for the worker and if they don’t receive tips then it’s not big deal since their wages are enough to cover their expenses. This is in contrast to what we have now where tips are used to supplement wages. So with increased wages and with people still deciding to tip on occasion, the average worker would actually make more money, not less. In terms of revenue for the restaurant owner or chain exec, I could care less.

3: You are ignoring a variety of important factors in the assertion. Not everybody lives in an area or can easily move to one where they can make that much in tips. Not everybody can easily switch jobs and take a gap in pay. Not everyone is in an area flush with jobs where they can get paid properly. Sometimes surprise expenses come up and mess up your budget when you are living paycheck to paycheck. Basically, not everyone has the means to actually do what you are suggesting. If people could easily find a new job to make up for any budget shortfalls then we wouldn’t see bankruptcy and homelessness run rampant.

4: People don’t care about the actual concept of tipping at all. Who needs to drive this is restaurant workers getting together and collectivizing to have bargaining power over restaurant owners. I doubt workers care about tipping over getting paid a livable wage with the added bonus of some people still tipping. If workers withhold their labor then restaurant owners will have to give in. This will lead to actual material change for these workers. I know it’s a long shot but it is a viable way to achieve these goals without involving consumers and their tipping habits. All of this is achievable (unless restaurant owners do what hospitals do when they try to unionize and bring in outside labor at a higher cost (which ironically would increase wages for those people, just not for those who got fired for trying to bargain) within our current legal framework.

I see what you mean. It is true that if the restaurant wage problem was solved tipping wouldn’t go away overnight, especially since many consumers in North America are used to the idea of tipping. However, I do believe it would slowly become less common as it is in other countries.

In places where tipping is less common, customers view the prices as fully baked in. What they pay includes the price of the food and providing enough so their workers can live. There’s no guilt over not tipping. Some people may if they like the service, but most won’t. Additionally, the consumer is able to make a more informed choice since they are able to see the actual cost of their meal. They also don’t have to choose having the soup vs. tipping someone enough to live.

I think my main point is that random patrons shouldn’t be able to determine whether someone can pay rent after working 12 hour shifts for a month. Letting the consumer split the cost of a transaction between the business and the worker is always a losing situation for the worker. The cost of the food is fixed, the business will always make X amount of dollars per transaction. Meanwhile, tipping is variable so the worker is never guaranteed a fair sum.

If workers were paid properly then tipping would be viewed as an actual reward for doing a good job instead of a restaurant worker subsidy program as it currently stands. As I see it, the whole industry needs to change with actual laws backing up it up or else a few bad actors can ruin everything in the name of wanting to be profitable.

I agree 100% especially given the behaviors that our current economic system incentivizes. I was simply responding to what you said about consumers preferences driving tipping culture instead of the industry.

Although consumers in North America feel comfortable and good about tipping, this tradition primarily stems from the push to increase profits by underpaying workers and offsetting their deserved pay with the “merit” based tipping system. It’s a clever trick that feeds into the idea that “the harder your work, the more you get paid”.

I don’t think this system will change unless profit is removed as the main factor in driving a business. Not to mention our legal system discourages and even prosecutes those who attempt to undermine the growth of a company against shareholder interests.

The only places this works is in privately owned businesses where the people who run it have the authority to prioritize paying employees over profits. However, this opens the door for businesses to reduce prices by cutting wages which undercuts the private business used in this example and could lead them to go out of business.

This example is basically to state that in order to eliminate the tipping culture and give workers the pay they deserve, the entire industry needs to change. One private company cannot be solely responsible for this change since another can come in and eliminate them. Now do I think this will happen? NO!

The industry decides that profits come before everything else. Large restaurant corporations could easily charge the same amount, pay workers more (with the add on effect of customers saving money by not having to tip), and take a hit to profits. Unfortunately, our legal system doesn’t punish businesses for not paying workers a livable wage or for using tips to deceptively price goods to overcharge consumers. Instead, it’s illegal to not abide by fiduciary duty in the pursuit of infinite profits. Due to this, I can’t see the tipping culture going away anytime soon. It isn’t the consumers who are driving this, it’s the restaurant industry.

I used to work for a wealth management firm who got pre-IPO shares of DWAC. Even with the lockup period, anyone who bought those shares made an incredible amount of money. To anyone who invested at or after the IPO…they’ve lost quite a bit. Just goes to show that being good at investing boils down to having lots of money and knowing the right people. Basically the rich get richer with absolutely no risk while the average person gets fucked to line their pockets.

I’m guessing it’s to train AI models for Microsoft 365 Copilot.