- Greater user control how is any of the other platforms they have no problem with any different than twitter?
- Real security improvements where is end to end encryption on all the other social media? And why do they need end to end encryption to broadcast a message to the public?
- Transparent content moderation wait, the EFF is now calling for more censorship?
The first two points are clearly nonsensical, only the third one has at least some logic. Though if the EFF has turned pro-censorship, I am having bad feeling for having given them money in the past.
It doesn’t help that they do that sort of shits AND mandate a microsoft account for logging in to windows. Also how much trust can you have that if you move your business to azure they will not randomly kill it. Incompetence or malice, almost doesn’t matter to the average user.
The outcome is the same, yes. With incompetence, there is at least a glimmer of hope things will get rectified. But you are correct, trust is destroyed this way, and it doesn't look like Microsoft cares much.
Not convinced it will happen. What would prevent Saudi Arabia from retaliating and introducing a special fee on all ships coming from Iran. It's not like intercepting those massive cargo ships in a small sea is of any difficulty for a well funded military.
Saudi Arabia has something like twice as many jet fighters than France. Even if you factor incompetence, it's not hard to hit a cargo ship or an oil production facility in absence of any meaningful air defence.
Saudi Arabia needs jet fighters to patrol a very large desert and active threats all around. France doesn't have enemies on all sides, and it has nukes and a navy. There's no pressing need for France to have more planes than Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has FAR more to lose. Paying $1 or its equivalent in Yuan per barrel is utterly nothing for them. Chump Change.
Unfortunately, I do not believe Israel will stand for peace on this terms, so a false-flag sabotage attack will happen as soon as they are freed from their conquest of Lebanon.
I see this claim repeated over and over. You should be aware that it is false. As far as I am aware, Israel never funded Hamas. Israel allowed Qatari money to the Gaza authority to pay for civil servants, humanitarian aid and basic services, while it was run by Hamas.
I love the idea that even on a mission to the moon the crew still needs to allocate a portion of their time to click through cookie consent banners, non skippable ads and fighting with windows update! Probably part of the effort to make the environment similar to life on earth to make the long trip more bearable.
well I was about to migrate to AWS from smartermail (which completely ruined my trust with their handling of their disastrous zero day) when I read this. I am in the market for a replacement too.
Looking for a provider handling custom domains, aliases, enabling to send emails from an alias and with an API to create/delete aliases programmatically, with a decent webmail + ActiveSync or equivalent for easy smartphone config + push.
So far it seems to me that the only options are Exchange 365 and Google. But I fear those will be over engineered and super complicated to set up.
It's a bit absurd to describe all the procedures Iran takes to disguise those ships. It's not like it is hard for the US military to track massive tankers in a small sea (or to intercept them if they wish to). Those tankers are tolerated by the US because they don't want to antagonise China more than they need right now (not the least to keep them out of this conflict), and don't want to add more pressure on the oil market. Not because somehow those ships evaded US vigilance thanks to Iran's cunning skills.
But this is a damocles sword hanging over Iran. The US could seize those tankers if they want to apply more pressure.
And by doing so escalate more and potentially lead Iran to hit critical infra across the gulf nations and potentially disrupt red sea shipping too. There is too much exposed, expensive and delicate infrastructure to adequately protect. Iran could likely cause far more damage than it already has, and to infrastructure that could lead to years, or even decades, of problems all at a time when oil is starting to wind down. The gulf nations know this. This could transition oil earlier than expected. Hit their oil infra, and their water infra and the region may not recover until oil is no longer in demand. Nations are likely taking notice of how cavalier the US is being with other nations security and prosperity right now. Spain is getting down right hostile and we have a lot of military assets there and along history of joint bases with them. This is potentially a major turning point for supporting the US in any endeavor. Basically, yeah, I am sure we know where those ships are but hopefully we are being as rational as possible somewhere in the government and are holding back in hopes of -something- being salvaged here.
> by doing so escalate more and potentially lead Iran to hit critical infra across the gulf nations and potentially disrupt red sea shipping
Nothing indicates the U.S. is taking Iran's threats of escalation seriously. Like, I think we should. But it doesn't seem to be playing into the calculus. If Iran escalates, the U.S. can too. And I don't think Trump is bluffing about hitting power and water infrastructure.
The reason we aren't hitting the ships is because we want oil to keep flowing into the international markets.
In the past it had less to do with seizing the vessels and more to do with keeping financial flows between organizations offering shipping services and oil hidden from the banking system. America could have easily seized any ship they wanted to during the sanctions over the past decade. They didnt because the sanctions are American constructs: they dont apply on the open seas where UNCLOS matters. America can still seize them, but the legality is murky and comes with a reputational cost.
Now with Hormuz closed, America needs every last oil barrel moving so the economy doesn’t grind to a halt. Remember, it’s a war of choice for the US. We don’t need Iran gone as much as we want low oil prices.
> the sanctions are American constructs: they dont apply on the open seas where UNCLOS matters
Technically correct. But the way these countries evade U.S. sanctions is by flying false or no flag. That, in turn, makes them vulnerable under UNCLOS's anti-piracy rules.
> it isn’t America’s determination that a registration is fraudulent. It is the flag state’s.
Sort of. If there is no flag, it's America's determination. And in many of the seizure cases, the flag state confirmed a fraudulent registration. (I believe there was one around Venezuela falsely registered with Panama.)
Curious, at what price per barrel does US oil fields get profitable? For their own domestic consumption they don't really need the Irani oil do they ? It seems to be the case that it's rest of the world that needs the oil and US needs the rest of the world to not be pissed at the US.
> at what price per barrel does US oil fields get profitable?
$30 to 70 per barrel [1]. (Pretty much all production is profitable above $100/barrel.)
> they don't really need the Irani oil do they ?
Our refineries can't process our own crude. So we export crude and import refined products.
That said, yes, the oil exports do blunt the net effect of the blow. If pressure really rose, one could tax the excess profits to directly reduce gas prices.
Agree it's a thin disguise. It works because the same sword hangs over Trump's head as well. He needs the price of oil to not spike too high so any oil supply is welcome.
And for all the heated rethoric, both sides have shown a certain restraint so far, which is encouraging. It doesn't feel like a deal is out of the question.
The US consumer will still pay more at the petrol station. Doesn't matter to them that some big oil companies are making a killing somewhere else in the US. US consumers vote.
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