At the risk of asking a dumb question, isn't parading military units down public streets the sort of thing communist dictatorships do?

I know I've seen video of this sort of thing from places like North Korea and Soviet Russia, can't say I've really seen it from the states.

Sadly Japan may be a culture in decline.
Their culture is basically work yourself to the bone even more than the US. Young people study their ass off and get a job working long hours while still living at home because they still can't afford their own place. And you have stuff like if the subway is a minute late they hand out apology slips to workers so they don't get in trouble with their bosses for being 30 seconds late. Meanwhile there is a very strong 'defer to elder authority' note in their culture. And in many industries people are expected to work a 10-hour day and then go drinking with the bus until 2:00 a.m. only to be back at work the next day at 8:00 a.m.
The end result is young people have neither the time nor the money to have kids. So they don't.

Their population is literally aging and shrinking. They are facing a very serious problem in wondering who is going to take care of their elderly. Their birth to death ratio is 0.44, meaning that for every baby born in a year more than two people die. In a nation of about 125 million, the population is shrinking by just under a million every year. That's not good.

And while the Japanese people are highly educated and very capable, the 'defer to authority' culture prevents the sort of entrepreneurship you see in the US. An example of this, Japanese companies have a stamp called the hanko, when a paper memo is circulated around the office each employee stamps it with their personal hanko stamp to signify that they have read it. Many Japanese companies stayed in person during COVID simply because there was no digital equivalent to the hanko and managers refused to give it up.

If you wants an example, look at Toyota Motors. It's been obvious to everyone with eyes that electric vehicles are the future, and it has been obvious for probably 8 or 10 years. Every major automaker is investing in EV technology. Except Toyota, which up until recently was still betting the farm on hybrids and hydrogen. But that's because the good Mr Toyoda didn't like EVs, and unlike in an American company no one would dare challenge him on that.

It is really too bad. Japan is a wonderful place with an amazing culture and rich history. But if they are going to survive they need to make very serious changes to their society and they need to do it soon. That is going to involve dumping most of what currently qualifies as Japanese business culture, an instituting some real work-life balance laws with teeth. I don't know if they're going to do it.

There's two things going on here.
As a pilot, I'm familiar with hypoxia and how it works. I or pretty much any other pilot could very quickly write a completely bulletproof execution protocol that would guarantee a 100% painless death every time. It would involve a non-rebreathing 100% nitrogen mask so every lungful taken is 100% fresh nitrogen. In this mode, you just get drowsy and euphoric and pass out with no physical pain.

If they ask me to write it, I don't care if they offer a million dollars I wouldn't do it. I think the death penalty is barbaric and the way we have applied it is even worse, given how there are numerous instances of people executed despite evidence they were innocent being blocked by court procedure and prosecutors. I'm not saying there aren't people the world is better off without, there absolutely are. But if we are going to kill people, we need to be absolutely 100% totally fucking sure beyond any doubt regardless of procedure. So I will not support the death penalty.

And that brings us to the two issues.
First is that very few people who actually understand how to do it have any interest in writing good execution protocol. Thus a lot of the protocols are written by people without understanding of human physiology. And quite frankly, I would rather that be the case, if only so it is easier to challenge capital punishment.

Second, is that I think some of the people who write these protocols actually want to cause suffering. I say I'm a pilot so I have understanding of hypoxia, but none of my knowledge is unique or difficult to obtain. A quick Google for 'painless death nitrogen' would tell you everything you need to know.
So when I hear that the condemned is breathing his own CO2 from a bag, I conclude that either whoever wrote the protocol doesn't have Google, or they are intentionally writing a protocol that will look good on paper but cause suffering in reality. Or the protocol is being implemented in such a way to cause suffering, for example if the nitrogen flow is not enough. An executioner could easily prolong suffering by simply using less nitrogen, causing the prisoner to breathe CO2 and thus feel panic reaction.

But I think that further illustrates why the death penalty is a bad idea. The fact that the entire stack from prison guard up to Governor isn't 100% focused on a humane death sense to me we need to clean our own house before we start burning others.

I remember reading a story a while back about the documentary they were making on him. He had his special diet of juices and supplements and whatnot, which he claimed helped him while his liver was failing. The actor who portrayed him started following the same diet to better get in character. Only then he collapsed on set with liver problems. They did a full medical work up and basically told him whatever you're doing stop doing it because it's killing you. He went back to his normal diet and he was fine. Raising the serious question, did Steve Jobs outsmart himself to death? If he had given up all the diets and supplements and whatnot might he have lived?

This is fantastic. It's not super expensive either. Just an extra 240 volt 50 amp cable with a 14-50 outlet. If done at the build stage it's a few hundred bucks.

I don't agree. Free linking has always been a vitally important part of the open internet. The principle that if I make something available on a specific URL, others can access it, and I don't get to charge others for linking to a public URL is one of the core concepts of the internet itself.

A little background on the NYPD and firearms
Back when most departments were transitioning from revolvers to semi-auto, NYPD held on to revolvers for quite a while. Their revolvers used double action triggers, which means pulling the trigger both rotates the cylinder and also cocks the hammer. This means the trigger pull is long and heavy, you have to pull it a long distance back and with a good amount of force.
With pistols, the longer distance you have to pull the trigger and the harder you have to pull, the less accurate you are. Pulling the trigger moves your hand and puts force on the gun itself which can throw off your aim.
Many officers would 'pre stage' the trigger, pulling it halfway back to an indent where the pull gets slightly harder. This is a horrible practice that no one should ever do, because it means you might unintentionally discharge if you get jostled, but it made them more accurate when it came time to actually fire so they kept doing it. NYPD didn't train it out of the officers even though it is against virtually every firearm guideline.

So then the department switched from revolvers to semi-auto pistols, mainly for the magazine- average semi-auto pistol holds 17 rounds, revolver holds 6. But they used striker fired pistols- these guns have a shorter, lighter trigger pull as the only thing the trigger does is move a catch to release already stored spring tension into the firing pin. That can make you much more accurate because the force of pulling the trigger moves your aim off, so less force needed to pull the trigger means more accuracy.

Problem was, a lot of officers had muscle memory from years or decades of carrying the double action revolver so they would try to pre-stage the trigger. And that would of course fire the gun when they didn't want to.

NYPD's solution to this was to simply make the trigger on their semi-autos really really really hard to pull. They had a custom spring designed that increased the trigger force- a semi-auto usually requires about 4-6 pounds of force to pull the trigger, they put a 12 lb spring. That allowed the officers to apply pre-stage force from their revolver days without discharging the weapon. Still absolutely horrible practice, but this stopped the unintentional discharges.

This had the side effect of course of making the guns relatively inaccurate. When you have to squeeze the trigger with that much force, it throws your aim off. And especially when you are in an emergency situation and adrenaline is pumping, it's hard to shoot accurately when you need to pull that hard. But it stopped the unintentional discharges so they went with it, since the force had a lot of old-timers.

And, for a very long time, they kept issuing these 12lb trigger guns even to new recruits, many of whom had never fired a gun before and could be easily trained to use a standard trigger with proper trigger discipline. So now THOSE officers were accustomed to 12lb triggers.

For the record, no other police department in the nation did this. Every one of them transitioned from revolvers to semi-autos without much problem, because they did not tolerate bad trigger discipline to begin with. And while some recommend a slightly stiffer trigger than the stock trigger, NYPD is literally the only one with a 12 lb trigger.

It wasn't until 2021 that NYPD started to back off, and started issuing new recruits weapons with 'only' 8lb trigger springs. That is still fairly high, but those 4 lb less makes it a lot easier to shoot accurately.

Point of all this-- When I hear that NYPD is shooting multiple bystanders, I'm not surprised. Unless those officers first hit the streets in the last couple of years, they are still using the 12 lb trigger and it's not surprising they have shit accuracy and are shooting bystanders.

It's a problem of NYPD's own making though.

Not surprising even a little bit. McDonald's is not and never will be a premium burger. That is not their market segment. But they have priced themselves at and above many premium burger offerings. I get the desire to move out of the absolute lowest budget, but they've done it too much. There's no point in going to McDonald's when you can get a significantly better burger for the same or less money.

This right here is the answer. HOAs usually have fairly complicated rules, but they're absolutely are and are required to be bylaws that dictate the operation of the HOA, how board members are elected, what responsibility is the HOA has to the residents, etc. A big part of why HOAs get out of control is because the only people who bother to serve on their boards are the busybodies you least want in charge of your HOA. So simple solution, run and get yourself and your friends elected. Then then when you have power over the HOA, push through a bylaw amendment that significantly restricts the HOA's authority and makes it very difficult to get it back. IE, The HOA may not create any new rule or regulation or penalty governing what people do on their private property without an in-person vote at a meeting where at least 90% of the residents personally show up and vote yes, however the president or board may remove any such regulations or penalties at will.

Or if you have support, just push through a charter amendment that says the HOA ceases to exist on some specific date and releases all CC&Rs for all governed properties.

This thing is way too half baked to be in production. A day or two ago somebody asked Google how to deal with depression and the stupid AI recommended they jump off the Golden Gate Bridge because apparently some redditor had said that at some point. The answers are so hilariously wrong as to go beyond funny and into dangerous.

To understand Boeing's situation you have to understand McDonnell Douglas. And we go back to the DC-10 cargo door issue.

That's a long read, so here's the short version. The DC-10 cargo door was held on from the outside by rotating latches; when fully engaged the pressure inside the aircraft would push the latches closed so the door was VERY secure, but if the latches weren't fully engaged the pressure would push the latches open. The telltale showing the cargo operator that the latch was fully engaged wasn't connected to the latch, but rather the handle, which was itself connected to the latch via a spring. If the operator pushed the latch closed too hard or too fast, the spring would bend, and the telltale would show the door as latched, even though it wasn't.

If the door flies open in flight that means explosive decompression of the cargo area. That means the pressure of the air in the passenger cabin pushing down on the floor is huge, measured in tons per square meter. It's worth noting that the control cables that carry movement from the yoke to the rudder/elevator control surfaces in the tail go through the floor.

One of these failed on a mostly empty flight. The floor buckled and a few seats were sucked down through the floor and out of the airplane. The pilots lost all rudder control but miraculously were able to land the jet without further injury. FAA investigated and found the problem, Douglas made a 'gentleman's agreement' with FAA that they would fix this quietly without an embarrassing Airworthiness Directive (forcing all operators to comply and damaging Douglas's reputation). At all points, the priority for Douglas management was avoiding bad reputation and excess expense, not making sure the aircraft were safe.

A European operator then wasn't subscribed to Douglas's maintenance service so the update never happened. And another one failed- this one on a VERY full flight with ~350 people on it. The added weight on the floor caused a much larger section of the floor to fail, the control lines were all severed, and the plane crashed with no survivors.

In the 1990s, McDonnell Douglas and Boeing merged. The Boeing management team (mostly engineers) was replaced with the Douglas management team (bean counters). Their headquarters then moved from Seattle (where they build planes) to Washington, DC (where they lobby for federal contracts).

Granted it's 30 years after that merge, but it's pretty obvious the same management strategy is still in charge.
Take the 787 Dreamliner. Their strategy there was reduce all the expensive engineers, instead just write the specs and outsource design and build of entire subsystems. It had lots of teething problems, I've heard reports that some parts with tolerances measured in tenths of a millimeter were off by half an inch or more (and that was the reject pile, ones off by less were ground down and hammered into place). Other than some battery problems the aircraft has been pretty safe though.
And now take the MAX product line. A few years back you had issues with MCAS- a computer that makes the new jet fly like the old jet so pilots won't need retraining, even though the new jet ISN'T like the old jet and flies quite differently and if MCAS fails you'll have a very different beast on your hands (none of this was mentioned in the operation manual). That caused some crashes.

Now you have this door plug issue. It's worth noting that Boeing has outsourced assembly of the entire fuselage to another company, who (from what I've read) is constantly pressured to increase production and decrease costs. NOT a safety culture.

From some reports I've read, procedure at the other company was to make the bolts on the door plug 'finger tight' for transport, because not all customers would want the door plug, some would want the actual emergency exit door. So that means with a little bit of vibration on those bolts, the door plug is only held in place by gravity and prayers.

FAA is now supposedly doing some kind of major audit of Boeing manufacturing, and is considering no longer allowing Boeing to self-certify their quality control processes. I'm quite sure it'll turn up a lot of dirt.
What I HOPE happens is that the market, both the stock market and the aircraft market, heavily punish Boeing and/or demand that their management be replaced. I'm not holding my breath though.

IMHO, the problem with Google isn't SEO. It's Google. When Google was great, it would find exactly what you were searching for. The whole point was to get you off of Google and on to whatever site you were looking for as quickly as possible. Over the last several years, their search has increasingly been drinking the 'engagement algorithm' Kool-Aid. Now Google doesn't search for what you ask, it searches for what it thinks you are trying to find. Which is fucking useless because I know exactly what I'm trying to find and that's exactly what I typed in. Selecting verbatim search and putting things in quotes helps. But it's still displays tons of irrelevant stuff that doesn't include what I searched for.

It's actually easy to point to exactly when the downfall started. Years ago Google was trying to make a social network called Google+ that would compete with Facebook. Before this, a + operator in the search field meant only show results that contain that particular term. But they wanted people to search for Google+, so they changed it so the plus sign became a searchable term and quotes were necessary to include a term or phrase. That was the moment Google decided that search wasn't their most important product. And it's been slow downhill ever since.