A funny things is that we keep hearing about US only tech power, but AMSL (NL), is needed by TSMC (TW) to engrave a reference design by ARM (UK). But US is going one more time to limit EU tech by getting its hand on both ARM and AMSL as they previously did with many EU tech companies... At one point EU should realize that the US are playing the same game as the Chinese and are really not business friend.
Again this shareholder nationality things? (A Japanese shareholder don’t make ARM a Japanese company). Because by this metric a lot of US companies are not US... (a couple of them can even be Norwegian or Saudi despite having no presence were there shareholders resides).
I've been involved with many international groups where the controlling shareholders have a different domicile to the operating company. The shareholders will always call the shots. They can replace operating teams, restructure the business and transfer technology. The ultimate shareholder has control - have absolutely no doubt about that.
From an economic perspective that's not really the issue, it's the facilities, employment, skills and access to technology that governments mainly care about. Who the owner is only really matters to the extent that it influences those facts on the ground. Any owner could move the company's operations, no matter what their nationality.
The EU knows this, but they will continue to comply with US trade sanctions until they can live without the US in all areas. A giant hurdle (but not the only one) is NATO and being able to counter Russia. While NATO and the EU are separate, many countries are members of both. If the EU took a hard stance and said that they value trade with China more than the US's security complaints, the US could very well use that as an excuse to pull troops out of Europe. And if anyone thinks that doesn't matter, just know that a Russian invasion (or more likely erosion of borders) is something that terrifies EU leaders far more than missing out on sales to China.
All this talk about NATO still being an active entity in the protection of Europe is dangerous and hopelessly naïve.
As long as Trump is president, I don't think we need to have any illusions as to which side he would chose in a hypothetical armed conflict between the EU and Russia (he would pick no side).
EU politicians should wake up and smell the coffee, and invest in an EU army before it's too late. We really (desperately) need strategic independence from the US and other foreign powers. The US in particular has been an unpredictable, unreliable, and untrustworthy partner in the past two decades or so (e.g. Iran deal, Paris climate accords, Iraq war, EU-US trade wars, ...)
EDIT: Stop downvoting me and tell me instead where I'm wrong.
> EU politicians should wake up and smell the coffee, and invest in an EU army before it’s too late
They could, but at least in the short term it appears to be cheaper to let the US spend the money on their military and still get the benefits, even factoring some lost trade to China. It would take many $123mm lithography machines to make up for the billions they would need to create a standing army. That trade off will change, but everything hinges on the “before it’s too late” part of your argument, which you can be assured that virtually no democratically elected politician will get right, since they are looking at <10 years by nature of political campaigns.
Considering the previous Administration did little more than hashtag diplomacy in regards to Russia's take over Crimea and their conflict with Ukraine I do not understand why the EU hasn't moved on as it is. Trump could have been leveraged as a great excuse to finally do so. However it really comes down to money, the EU is fine with the current situation as long as it doesn't cost more money because no economy is in great shape right now.
If the Russians actually wanted to invade Europe they'd stir up some pointless local unrest and then just send a few million Russian refugees to collect welfare in Germany. Why even bother with the tanks?
I understand the issues the US has but there are big difference here that you just cannot ignore. To give China preference in trade is to accept all that China is doing and will do. What would it take to say, no. From Hong Kong to treatment Uighurs and their threat towards Taiwan. The world as a whole needs to step back from trade with China as a whole.
As for NATO , the EU has long has the technical means to do away with the need but they don't want to pay for it. How much do you value your security? Getting rid of NATO would be the first step in probably forcing the American government rethink its military spending; sadly the percentage of the US budget going there decreases by small percentages overall letting politicians on both sides claim they have reduced spending. Even halving the US defense budget won't solve the US deficit issues.
> sadly the percentage of the US budget going there decreases by small percentages overall letting politicians on both sides claim they have reduced spending. Even halving the US defense budget won't solve the US deficit issues.
I think more US citizens should understand this. Even if the ENTIRE military budget were eliminated, the budget wouldn't put the US in the black. In fact, eliminating EVERYTHING except benefits programs still wouldn't balance the budget.
Millennial shouldn't forget that social security issues start in 2037 with a reduction to 76% of their current payout and it rapidly declines from there [0]. The only social program likely to work is the one you personally setup around yourself and save for right now.
A friend of mine is buying gold. It's a mystery to me how you can sort of see that it's all going down the drain but still insist on believing that you'll be able to sail through it by careful planning. We're all in the same boat here, and it's sinking fast. It doesn't take much of a disaster for money (and gold) to become completely worthless.
Was there ever a time in history (let's say, in the past 2000 years) when gold was worthless though? Barring from super specific events, like trying to escape from a sinking Titanic etc.
Just going off on a tangent, but Vikings seemed to prefer silver to gold. It’s hard to entangle cause and effect and silver mining in the Middle East around that time, though.
Its not that gold is worthless, but it might be worth significantly less for you. A sovereign nation could institute a recall of gold devaluing the commodity[1]. A different sovereign nation could invade and take the gold by force.
Both of which have precedent in the last 100 years. Ofcourse if you only read history from the perspective of the winners, gold is always a good long term investment.
> until they can live without the US in all areas.
The EU isn't necessarily worried it can't live without the US because the US wouldn't simply answer by withdrawing all support and embargoing the EU. They'd be shooting themselves in the other foot. But they would respond the way all superpowers do when direct, public intervention is not on the table. With subversion. If the NSA leaks have shown anything it's that even allies were thoroughly compromised and one button press away from a series of "unfortunate" events.
What's been recently dubbed "asymmetric warfare" has existed for decades. It's simply deniable attacks, economic or actual warfare via proxies, etc. Covertly supporting certain political candidates while subverting others in order to destabilize a country is in any superpower's playbook.
This is what the EU fears more than that it will suddenly have to face a Russian invasion without US support. For now it's a deal out of which the US gets far more than the rest. They get to cement their superpower status by having the most important and credible allies, and in exchange offer some protection and the promise of not shooting said allies in the foot... maybe just whack them over the shin once in a while.
It's also cheaper to let the US do its military thing and be a bodyguard, and that means the EU can focus on more important social issues. Maybe it's a small price to pay, maybe not. Some future generation will have to answer that.
> It's also cheaper to let the US do its military thing and be a bodyguard, and that means the EU can focus on more important social issues. Maybe it's a small price to pay, maybe not. Some future generation will have to answer that.
I guess Europe had better hope America doesn't do what Americans want and pull troops home...
The only truth of foreign policy is "might makes right". Ignoring treaties as just pieces of paper isn't new. Hegemony isn't just about power. If you have the might, you make the rules and can twist them to your benefit. In any case, I guess the EU believes an American hegemony beats out one by Russia or China by a large margin.
The EU has a combined GDP more than 10x that of Russia. Russia has some advantages -- having one of the world's biggest nuclear stockpiles means that they basically get to pick their conflicts, and being an arms exporter means their military R&D is in some sense subsidized by other countries, but still, that's a pretty big deficit to make up. And they have notably not picked any conflicts that the EU would find existential.
They are just set up differently. The EU doesn't have a central military, so they can't do foreign adventures very well, and as a result they don't invade places very often. But this could be seen as a good thing...
My knee-jerk impression is that the European countries don't have the will to deploy their military in a show of force, which is different from saying they wouldn't technically be able to defend their borders from actual force rather than creeping intimidation.
On the other hand, the US actually LIKES the show of force, and sees it as a strategic strength, to the extent that they're overjoyed to have an ally to protect as an 'excuse' to flex muscle in the region.
The only reasons Europeans care about the US military presence in Europe are (1) the economic benefits and (2) the signalling of solidarity against Russia. Actually countering Russian military capacity really isn't an issue any more, and Britain and France have enough nukes to act as a deterrent.
Russia is a threat, but in the annoying neighbours who keeps holding loud parties, deal drugs and litter the streets and who's dog keeps crapping on your lawn kind of way. You don't want to do anything to encourage them, but actually your uncle is in the police and you have two cousins in the Army, and if the neighbours tried anything really serious, reality would assert itself pretty fast, and not in their favour.
The US is keeping it's military presence in Europe to serve US strategic interests, yes versus Russia but also with respect to the Middle East. US operations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are heavily supported from bases in Europe. Pulling out those bases would cripple US ability to support those operations and project power across large swathes of Euraisa and Africa.
> Britain and France have enough nukes to act as a deterrent
But would they be willing to sacrifice their countries in a nuclear exchange on behalf of Germany? Also, Britain and France have far fewer nukes than Russia and the US. In addition, they don't have the massive land area to make a first strike implausible.
Actually countering Russian military capacity really isn't
an issue any more, and Britain and France have enough
nukes to act as a deterrent
Yes, NATO is probably safe from a preemptive nuclear strike from Russia, thanks to mutually assured destruction.
Which... okay, yes. It's distinctly better than not being safe from a preemptive Russian nuclear strike. However, this is merely necessary; not sufficient.
Have you considered the vast number of non-nuclear aggressions that Russia might undertake, and in fact has already undertaken?
Crimea was safe from Russian nuclear attack too. Ask them how it went.
Are France and the UK's nuclear arsenal going to help if Russia makes more Crimea-style land grabs? Shuts down shipping lanes? Cuts pipelines or internet access? Shoots down geostationary satellites over Europe? Assassinates the leader of a NATO nation?
Granted, there's no guarantee that the United States would help you then, either. We have not been the most reliable partner, and I am deeply sorry for that. I do not support the leaders who have made things this way. I want us to be a better partner.
Regardless, surely you understand that there is a great need for conventional military deterrence by NATO? Nukes solve an extremely limited list of potential problems.
The US tech war against China acts as a massive subsidy for China's domestic semiconductor companies. I suspect that is why the Chinese response has been so muted.
I'd guess: the societal demand for tech is there, the government wants it to be fulfilled, so there will be ample money available for setting up the necessary infrastructure and training personnel, from both public and private sources.
An economy independent of foreign supplies has been a goal of communist China since its inception. And an active government program for high-end chip production including foundries has been there for a decade.
The problem is: How do you convince a world class chip designer like HiSilicon that it should use a local foundry rather than TSMC? TSMC which is more advanced, more reliable, maybe even cheaper? Without breaking China's commitment to WTO and other agreements that facilitate open trade.
That problem is solved now by the policies of the US.
The EU unsuccessfully tried to save the JCPA (aka "Iran nuclear deal") from US sanctions by creating an alternative financial payment infrastructure based on the Euro & European banks & side-stepping sanctions as enforced by the US Treasury.
It totally would have worked, had the US not escalated to sanctioning any entities that dared to utilize this alternative system to deal with Iran. You are right to say the EU needs to get a bigger stick to successfully protect its interests when they diverge from American interests. In the long term - I'm talking decades - American troops will leave Europe, perhaps leaving a skeleton crew managing nuclear deterrence: whether they will be pulled back, or pushed out remains to be seen, but the natural evolution of the EU project will eventually result in a standing European army. What happens on Nov 3 will accelerate or delay this eventuality
Same with Qualcomm trying to buy NXP (also from NL).
It only failed because the Chinese gov refused to accept the merger. But the EU had already agreed to it.
The UK should have never agreed to Google buying DeepMind either.
These companies have tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. They can afford to "create" a new competitor in the market, rather than take out OUT of the market, and it we would all be better off.
I really think all $100+ million acquisitions of companies should enter automatic anti-trust review. Maybe even lower than that.
These acquisitions by large companies hurt consumers in two ways. Either they squander the disruptive technology and nothing comes out of it, slowing down progress for everyone, or they put it to good use and then they get to maintain or extend their dominant positions - and we don't want any of that to happen as consumers.
We want these large companies to continue to have healthy competition. It's better for consumers and it's better for the job market, too (fewer companies in the market = fewer job hunting opportunities = downward pressure on salaries).
> At one point EU should realize that the US are playing the same game as the Chinese and are really not business friend.
While I (as a German) agree that the US imperialism and dominance in high tech is a problem, I would not go as low and say the US is on the same level as China, which is an outright threat to all core values of the Western nations.
I'm assuming the previous comment about "core Western values" wasn't referring to "unfettered capitalism" but to stuff like "democracy", "respect of human rights", ... :-)
Capitalism is fundamentally as flawed as people are -- but it beats everything else by a huge margin.
If you're going to parse hairs, democracy is inherently NOT a "western value". Alexander Hamilton went on at great length in the early federalist papers about the fate of democracies. All failed rather quickly. We formed a republic with democratic elements BECAUSE direct democracy is so tyrannical and doesn't protect minority groups leading to it's downfall. Despite all the complaints, I'd love to see a country throughout history with better treatment of minorities. That country just doesn't exist and countries making things better for minorities over time was even less known at the USA founding.
Finally, foreign affairs are much closer to anarcho-capitalism than anything which implies that anarcho-capitalism is the most free one could theoretically be (though the immediate fall into despotism would make the short-lived freedom of little value).
Indeed, the biggest threat to the respecting minorities (also known as rule of law) in the US today are people and institutions spouting overheated rhetoric, implying that the US regime is just as bad as China's with respect to human rights.
This supposed lack of justice is then used as justification for destroying those institutions which do stand for rule of law in the US. In that way, those focused on this supposed lack of justice manifest their own fears.
US is also a threat to Western values, just look around the world and see how many people hate America. Usually it's because of the pretty bad shit that American government has done to them. Though I agree that being under Chinese or Russian rule seems like an on average worse outcome than the current American dominance.
FWIW, Churchill wasn't completely wrong when he (supposedly) said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
If only that were true. In history of American foreign policy, there's plenty of cases where America severely messed some nation up and then just... got up and left.
> While I (as a German) agree that the US imperialism and dominance in high tech is a problem
Why is it a problem?
> I would not go as low and say the US is on the same level as China
Why not?
> which is an outright threat to all core values of the Western nations.
I see this mantra repeated over and over again? What are these core values of Western nations. Nazism, imperialism, neocolonialism, antifa? Or are you referring to the virtue signalers manifesto?
> The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology.
If you think about it, it's deeply depressing how much incredibly interesting technology (and cumulative human effort) goes into portable computing devices that have the primary commercial purpose of forcing people to look at advertising.
There's something deeply wrong when the best purpose humanity can find for all the effort that goes into things like 5G and EUV lithography is to use it to keep people addicted to Facebook and unregulated gambling ("game with in-app payment") apps.
I believe that's the initial, scribbled signature of homo sapiens and post-modernism. We're past survival and aware enough to know something is up, but highly susceptible
to our instincts and especially to control by others.
While we could survive with so little work, others keep us in artifical scarcity to elevate their quality of life and protect themselves from people more predatory than them.
It's torturous to claim that phones have a "primary commercial purpose of forcing people to look at advertising". Most people would say phones are for talking to loved ones, having fun, getting the news, and playing games. Just today, I skimmed the NYT and FT, read about the Polish author Jan Potocki (and tweeted out quotes from the article), emailed my landlord, and reminisced with friends about our favorite biscuit shop. Perhaps I saw some ads, incidentally.
I realize not everyone is doing what I'm doing. But, seeing my friends' baby's pictures and all on Facebook isn't altogether worthless.
Valid points, although I disagree on the 'playing games' part. I haven't played mobile games in a long while, however the last time I checked them, they were all poorly designed, predatory schemes designed to be intentionally frustrating to get you to spend money in them.
You need to search for better games. There are some great ports of very good board games out there right now and almost all of the good board games are apps of the 'pay us $5-10 now and we will continue to update this already quite good app for years and you will never see an ad or IAP' variety. Very refreshing.
I have always been fascinated by this, actually. It's very clear that 'the system' (the way the world works) is not really good (good being for the benefit of mankind), in fact it's dangerous, and yet nobody does anything at all.
Everything is designed to extract the maximum amount of money possible, and ideas are only good if they generate money. And nobody sees anything wrong with that at all, long-term.
It's interesting to watch, as someone who comes from a different upbringing.
ASML's revenue has tripled since 2007 - [0]. Stock price increased ten fold. I'm sure they don't complain about how things turn out for them thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices after iPhone.
Cool tech. And I'm all for making integrated circuits and components more dense and space efficient. But I also wish that wouldn't result in the devices getting unreasonably thin/fragile. I'd rather have a sturdier device with 2-3x the battery capacity any day.
As it is, I put a bulky case/screen protector and carry a spare battery and cable. Not exactly an ideal solution.
> But I also wish that wouldn't result in the devices getting unreasonably thin/fragile. I'd rather have a sturdier device with 2-3x the battery capacity any day
Is that still the case though? I'm not sure about the Android world, but the last several iPhones have been getting thicker and heavier with bigger batteries, to the point that I would say the iPhone 11 is heavier than I'd like.
Fragility I agree with, but I think it's less the thinness and more that every high-end phone now has a glass back for wireless charging. I tend not to use cases and I've never once charged my phone wirelessly (and really don't care about it), so I wish there was an option for an aluminium back.
There's some phone manufacturers that optimize for battery capacity and / or sturdiness; CAT has lent their brand to stupidly sturdy phones that can be yote freely (https://www.catphones.com/).
Every generation of the iPhone after the 6 has been thicker, with more battery capacity, than the previous one. Where is this meme about "they just keep making the phones thinner with worse battery life" coming from?
It’s a hold over from 2014. Once a criticism, always a criticism.
A tangential quote about the persistence of old, uninformed ideas:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.” — Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950
I don't think the anti-China stuff is going away regardless of the election. Maybe some of the more egregious footgun stuff and the more petty sanctions and goading that are mainly for show, but the fact is there have been brewing disputes with China for a long time and Trump has brought them to a head.
However beating down on China over their behaviour only achieves anything if it changes that behaviour, otherwise what the heck are we doing? I don't think Trump has it in him to actually solve those problems. I'm not entirely sure Biden does either, but even if he doesn't at least there's a chance he might listen to people who do.
The market is also incredibly shortsighted most of the time. Trump being obnoxious and overall just bad - depending on your perspective - and Trump being right to want to do something about China are not mutually exclusive. It was a growing problem that needed to be addressed. I hope the president for the next 4 years and beyond handles it well.
How does a country of 300 million go up against a country of 1.4 billion in any way based on per capita aggregates? Previous administrations saw the “baby” elephant for what it was and decided to introduce it to the world on US terms instead of Chinese terms. That’s basically what Kissinger says Mao communicated to him when they met-that China would surpass the US someday and they were planning for it centuries out if needed.
There is a silver lining though. The US land is more fertile and has greater resources than China. It’s also got a more diverse system across the board - and the world stage typically prefers the US to China (at least before Trump).
You tell me how the US positions itself any better than what it did and now seeks to undo.
OK so I hope to br proven wrong, but the stats for the iPad Air don't really back this up being such a big deal.
They compare it to the A12 for a start rather than the A13 of last year, so it can't be that big of a leap. Plus it's clocked faster which would account for almost all of the increase in performance from the A13. I'm sure it's a solid new chip - as always - but I see no evidence of a particularly massive revolution this year, in the iPhone or iPad Air.
Of course the rumoured 16 core version for MacBook (maybe iPad Pro too?) is a different matter! That's where I'm excited.
They compare it to the A12 I think because the iPad Pro and previous iPad Air (I believe, can’t remember) were both running A12 variants. It may still have something over the A13, but if they are trying to convince people to upgrade they probably want to compare it to the previous gen.
The issue is more fundamental. Apple hasn't made any computing breakthroughs.
They got a lot of gains by going super-wide to extract obvious parallel performance. They are now at the point where adding more units costs more than it offers (at present). Their fundamental advantage over x86 is that aarch64 is less quirky, so implementing good ideas takes less time.
Their only "easy" dial left is ramping clocks, but that's linear power scaling, so it doesn't matter too much for their portable electronics. I'd guess they'll be focusing a lot more on data locality and caching. It's probably 5-10% gains every couple years from here on out.
I think this was borne out pretty well with the announcement. Most of the 'breakthrough' tech enabled by A14 was just stuff the A13 could already do just fine. They spent about 10 minutes talking about deep fusion FFS.
I am very curious how the "width" of an Apple cpu was measured. One of the few good measurements I know of was done here and it's a bit inconclusive as the result is very particular.
Last night my son took my earphones from the table to play with them, and I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for them (they ended up in the terrace!).
But this morning I got several ads on youtube for headphones.
My coworker told me stories like this and I thought that it was a coincidence or he just googled similar keywords without remembering it. But then I got a new phone and one day it (very unusually) suggested me anti-diarrhea pills. It was an interesting sensation, because guess what I was doing for last ten minutes before seeing this ads.
A demonstration that always stuck with me is from when Grace Hopper was on David Letterman. She had a piece of wire about 30cm long to show how far light travels in a nanosecond. Then she pulled out a little packet of pepper to show how far light travels in a picosecond.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 203 ms ] threadAs long as Trump is president, I don't think we need to have any illusions as to which side he would chose in a hypothetical armed conflict between the EU and Russia (he would pick no side).
EU politicians should wake up and smell the coffee, and invest in an EU army before it's too late. We really (desperately) need strategic independence from the US and other foreign powers. The US in particular has been an unpredictable, unreliable, and untrustworthy partner in the past two decades or so (e.g. Iran deal, Paris climate accords, Iraq war, EU-US trade wars, ...)
EDIT: Stop downvoting me and tell me instead where I'm wrong.
So until January 21st.
They could, but at least in the short term it appears to be cheaper to let the US spend the money on their military and still get the benefits, even factoring some lost trade to China. It would take many $123mm lithography machines to make up for the billions they would need to create a standing army. That trade off will change, but everything hinges on the “before it’s too late” part of your argument, which you can be assured that virtually no democratically elected politician will get right, since they are looking at <10 years by nature of political campaigns.
As for NATO , the EU has long has the technical means to do away with the need but they don't want to pay for it. How much do you value your security? Getting rid of NATO would be the first step in probably forcing the American government rethink its military spending; sadly the percentage of the US budget going there decreases by small percentages overall letting politicians on both sides claim they have reduced spending. Even halving the US defense budget won't solve the US deficit issues.
I think more US citizens should understand this. Even if the ENTIRE military budget were eliminated, the budget wouldn't put the US in the black. In fact, eliminating EVERYTHING except benefits programs still wouldn't balance the budget.
Millennial shouldn't forget that social security issues start in 2037 with a reduction to 76% of their current payout and it rapidly declines from there [0]. The only social program likely to work is the one you personally setup around yourself and save for right now.
[0] https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html
Both of which have precedent in the last 100 years. Ofcourse if you only read history from the perspective of the winners, gold is always a good long term investment.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
The EU isn't necessarily worried it can't live without the US because the US wouldn't simply answer by withdrawing all support and embargoing the EU. They'd be shooting themselves in the other foot. But they would respond the way all superpowers do when direct, public intervention is not on the table. With subversion. If the NSA leaks have shown anything it's that even allies were thoroughly compromised and one button press away from a series of "unfortunate" events.
What's been recently dubbed "asymmetric warfare" has existed for decades. It's simply deniable attacks, economic or actual warfare via proxies, etc. Covertly supporting certain political candidates while subverting others in order to destabilize a country is in any superpower's playbook.
This is what the EU fears more than that it will suddenly have to face a Russian invasion without US support. For now it's a deal out of which the US gets far more than the rest. They get to cement their superpower status by having the most important and credible allies, and in exchange offer some protection and the promise of not shooting said allies in the foot... maybe just whack them over the shin once in a while.
It's also cheaper to let the US do its military thing and be a bodyguard, and that means the EU can focus on more important social issues. Maybe it's a small price to pay, maybe not. Some future generation will have to answer that.
I guess Europe had better hope America doesn't do what Americans want and pull troops home...
The only truth of foreign policy is "might makes right". Ignoring treaties as just pieces of paper isn't new. Hegemony isn't just about power. If you have the might, you make the rules and can twist them to your benefit. In any case, I guess the EU believes an American hegemony beats out one by Russia or China by a large margin.
I'd guess if the US could spare people and equipment, it would be moving much closer to China at the moment.
They are just set up differently. The EU doesn't have a central military, so they can't do foreign adventures very well, and as a result they don't invade places very often. But this could be seen as a good thing...
On the other hand, the US actually LIKES the show of force, and sees it as a strategic strength, to the extent that they're overjoyed to have an ally to protect as an 'excuse' to flex muscle in the region.
Russia is a threat, but in the annoying neighbours who keeps holding loud parties, deal drugs and litter the streets and who's dog keeps crapping on your lawn kind of way. You don't want to do anything to encourage them, but actually your uncle is in the police and you have two cousins in the Army, and if the neighbours tried anything really serious, reality would assert itself pretty fast, and not in their favour.
The US is keeping it's military presence in Europe to serve US strategic interests, yes versus Russia but also with respect to the Middle East. US operations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are heavily supported from bases in Europe. Pulling out those bases would cripple US ability to support those operations and project power across large swathes of Euraisa and Africa.
But would they be willing to sacrifice their countries in a nuclear exchange on behalf of Germany? Also, Britain and France have far fewer nukes than Russia and the US. In addition, they don't have the massive land area to make a first strike implausible.
Which... okay, yes. It's distinctly better than not being safe from a preemptive Russian nuclear strike. However, this is merely necessary; not sufficient.
Have you considered the vast number of non-nuclear aggressions that Russia might undertake, and in fact has already undertaken?
Crimea was safe from Russian nuclear attack too. Ask them how it went.
Are France and the UK's nuclear arsenal going to help if Russia makes more Crimea-style land grabs? Shuts down shipping lanes? Cuts pipelines or internet access? Shoots down geostationary satellites over Europe? Assassinates the leader of a NATO nation?
Granted, there's no guarantee that the United States would help you then, either. We have not been the most reliable partner, and I am deeply sorry for that. I do not support the leaders who have made things this way. I want us to be a better partner.
Regardless, surely you understand that there is a great need for conventional military deterrence by NATO? Nukes solve an extremely limited list of potential problems.
The problem is: How do you convince a world class chip designer like HiSilicon that it should use a local foundry rather than TSMC? TSMC which is more advanced, more reliable, maybe even cheaper? Without breaking China's commitment to WTO and other agreements that facilitate open trade.
That problem is solved now by the policies of the US.
It totally would have worked, had the US not escalated to sanctioning any entities that dared to utilize this alternative system to deal with Iran. You are right to say the EU needs to get a bigger stick to successfully protect its interests when they diverge from American interests. In the long term - I'm talking decades - American troops will leave Europe, perhaps leaving a skeleton crew managing nuclear deterrence: whether they will be pulled back, or pushed out remains to be seen, but the natural evolution of the EU project will eventually result in a standing European army. What happens on Nov 3 will accelerate or delay this eventuality
It only failed because the Chinese gov refused to accept the merger. But the EU had already agreed to it.
The UK should have never agreed to Google buying DeepMind either.
These companies have tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. They can afford to "create" a new competitor in the market, rather than take out OUT of the market, and it we would all be better off.
I really think all $100+ million acquisitions of companies should enter automatic anti-trust review. Maybe even lower than that.
These acquisitions by large companies hurt consumers in two ways. Either they squander the disruptive technology and nothing comes out of it, slowing down progress for everyone, or they put it to good use and then they get to maintain or extend their dominant positions - and we don't want any of that to happen as consumers.
We want these large companies to continue to have healthy competition. It's better for consumers and it's better for the job market, too (fewer companies in the market = fewer job hunting opportunities = downward pressure on salaries).
While I (as a German) agree that the US imperialism and dominance in high tech is a problem, I would not go as low and say the US is on the same level as China, which is an outright threat to all core values of the Western nations.
I'm assuming the previous comment about "core Western values" wasn't referring to "unfettered capitalism" but to stuff like "democracy", "respect of human rights", ... :-)
If you're going to parse hairs, democracy is inherently NOT a "western value". Alexander Hamilton went on at great length in the early federalist papers about the fate of democracies. All failed rather quickly. We formed a republic with democratic elements BECAUSE direct democracy is so tyrannical and doesn't protect minority groups leading to it's downfall. Despite all the complaints, I'd love to see a country throughout history with better treatment of minorities. That country just doesn't exist and countries making things better for minorities over time was even less known at the USA founding.
Finally, foreign affairs are much closer to anarcho-capitalism than anything which implies that anarcho-capitalism is the most free one could theoretically be (though the immediate fall into despotism would make the short-lived freedom of little value).
This supposed lack of justice is then used as justification for destroying those institutions which do stand for rule of law in the US. In that way, those focused on this supposed lack of justice manifest their own fears.
Why is it a problem?
> I would not go as low and say the US is on the same level as China
Why not?
> which is an outright threat to all core values of the Western nations.
I see this mantra repeated over and over again? What are these core values of Western nations. Nazism, imperialism, neocolonialism, antifa? Or are you referring to the virtue signalers manifesto?
In retrospect, Intel should have insisted on much more onerous terms.
There are other suppliers who make photolithography equipment, if ASML went bankrupt, the industry would just fund the competitors.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-holding-intel-stake/...
> The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology.
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings
There's something deeply wrong when the best purpose humanity can find for all the effort that goes into things like 5G and EUV lithography is to use it to keep people addicted to Facebook and unregulated gambling ("game with in-app payment") apps.
While we could survive with so little work, others keep us in artifical scarcity to elevate their quality of life and protect themselves from people more predatory than them.
I realize not everyone is doing what I'm doing. But, seeing my friends' baby's pictures and all on Facebook isn't altogether worthless.
There's a limit to useful cynicism.
There are a good number of excellent mobile games though: Monument Valley comes to mind.
That's true. I also read a lot comments on hacker news.
Everything is designed to extract the maximum amount of money possible, and ideas are only good if they generate money. And nobody sees anything wrong with that at all, long-term. It's interesting to watch, as someone who comes from a different upbringing.
I hope they charge Apple 30% for every phone sold.
Apple doesn't like to comprosmise on their profits.
(Saying based on Apple's response to current Govt. Tax system)
[0]- https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ASML/asml-holding/...
Apple also shouldn't complain, but still they let the consumer pay twice: once for the phone, and then the tax.
If not, you're likely paying for it, due to the increased average cost to deliver the service/product.
Please educate yourself about what things are before making wrong statements like this.
As it is, I put a bulky case/screen protector and carry a spare battery and cable. Not exactly an ideal solution.
Is that still the case though? I'm not sure about the Android world, but the last several iPhones have been getting thicker and heavier with bigger batteries, to the point that I would say the iPhone 11 is heavier than I'd like.
Fragility I agree with, but I think it's less the thinness and more that every high-end phone now has a glass back for wireless charging. I tend not to use cases and I've never once charged my phone wirelessly (and really don't care about it), so I wish there was an option for an aluminium back.
A tangential quote about the persistence of old, uninformed ideas:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.” — Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950
However beating down on China over their behaviour only achieves anything if it changes that behaviour, otherwise what the heck are we doing? I don't think Trump has it in him to actually solve those problems. I'm not entirely sure Biden does either, but even if he doesn't at least there's a chance he might listen to people who do.
There is a silver lining though. The US land is more fertile and has greater resources than China. It’s also got a more diverse system across the board - and the world stage typically prefers the US to China (at least before Trump).
You tell me how the US positions itself any better than what it did and now seeks to undo.
They compare it to the A12 for a start rather than the A13 of last year, so it can't be that big of a leap. Plus it's clocked faster which would account for almost all of the increase in performance from the A13. I'm sure it's a solid new chip - as always - but I see no evidence of a particularly massive revolution this year, in the iPhone or iPad Air.
Of course the rumoured 16 core version for MacBook (maybe iPad Pro too?) is a different matter! That's where I'm excited.
They got a lot of gains by going super-wide to extract obvious parallel performance. They are now at the point where adding more units costs more than it offers (at present). Their fundamental advantage over x86 is that aarch64 is less quirky, so implementing good ideas takes less time.
Their only "easy" dial left is ramping clocks, but that's linear power scaling, so it doesn't matter too much for their portable electronics. I'd guess they'll be focusing a lot more on data locality and caching. It's probably 5-10% gains every couple years from here on out.
(still buying one though...)
I am very curious how the "width" of an Apple cpu was measured. One of the few good measurements I know of was done here and it's a bit inconclusive as the result is very particular.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442131
Speaking as someone completely clueless about the engineering at that level... damn, that's impressive.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618031
Last night my son took my earphones from the table to play with them, and I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for them (they ended up in the terrace!).
But this morning I got several ads on youtube for headphones.
I don't like this one bit.
Android smartphones are smarter than iPhone technically by the article's common sense
[0] https://youtu.be/F_IsBD6E3O4
13:21 in the video clearly shows that Snapdragon 865 already at 15 TOPS while A14 only has 11 TOPS
how is that skepticism?
That’s a great fact to impress friends and family with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beard-second