Global capitalism. Asia and the West are buying all their natural resources in an unbalanced trade relationship where the African countries have no bargaining power and the powerful countries can threaten to withhold food from the poor.

I have galaxy buds plus and they're good headphones but I don't think you're going to get good ANC from any brand at that price. A good deal on some buds is about as good as ANC to me anyway

Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug according to the DEA. That means it is considered to have no therapeutic use and a high potential for abuse and addiction. That is the most restricted category, even drugs like cocaine and fentanyl are not schedule 1 substances. Drugs in that group are the most restricted for scientists to study so in addition to all the other barriers keeping scientists from studying what they want there are a ton of government hoops to jump through. Marijuana was originally criminalized for culture war reasons and it is still a schedule 1 drug 100+ years later. There are also a bunch of fun laws like if you're a gun owner and you use marijuana, even in a state where it's legal, you're not allowed to own your guns anymore.

They use a pretty heavy coating to give the leather that smooth look. It's cheaper than getting really smooth leather but the downside is that you can't buff the scuffs out. I suspect they're relying more on the coating to cover up cheaper leather now based on all the quality issues people have been having lately.

You really have to go out of your way to find the English made ones. The ones in most shoe stores are the cheap black ones made in Asia

They've never had good grip in my experience, the urethane soles are like bars of soap in the winter

Solovair bought the old machines when Dr martens went overseas and they still make boots the way they used to make them. They're more expensive than docs but you're getting a quality boot for your money, not just the name tag. Rose anvil made a comparison video where he cuts them in half and shows the difference in build quality if you're interested

The ones they make currently are mostly crap. Solovair bought the machines when Dr martens went overseas so if you're in the market for a new pair check them out. The asian import docs look like the $20 boots at Walmart, I was really surprised to see how shitty they are now. They still make some in England and while I personally think they're overpriced the quality is much better. here's a comparison video of solovair and the england docs

They say they're going to investigate specific or credible threats as if that will protect anyone from an unannounced attack by one of the many right wing militias that love trump. The far right media is all on the same page that guns and fighting accomplish more than votes do. The number of individual hate crimes has exploded since 2016 too.

This is excellent

It will be interesting to see what happens when a case comes along that they screw up because they trusted a chatbot with no understanding of the law to replace a human. If a person makes a big mistake you can fire them, even sue them or get them put in prison. When an AI program makes a mistake where will the liability land?

The ones owned by China to start with, then whichever one is considered "woke" that week.

They're talking about banning it from state owned devices. Your app doesn't just know what you ate for lunch, it knows everywhere you go and it collects information about the networks it's connected to. Depending on the permissions (social media apps ask for basically everything possible) they can store your camera roll, text messages, emails, even some passwords if you're not careful. For most people the worst they could fear from that would be identity theft, maybe blackmail. If that's on a state owned ipad they could get all kinds of sensitive information. Most of the people who get recruited to do espionage are not James bond types, they're janitors and receptionists. All a bad actor needs is a way to get into the network and they can wreak all kinds of havoc or spy undetected for months. It seems like this issue is being used for culture war but there is a real problem.

The Chinese government has access to the data TikTok collects, that is the basis of their concerns.

They're not banning social media. They still want a steady crop of radicalized kids to manipulate into voting for them, they're just afraid china is using TikTok to spy on the US government

Some people still think government censorship is generally a bad thing

Capitalism is screwing us all

That's the last thing they want. Privacy was the basis that Roe v. Wade was decided on so right wing politicians are against privacy. The people naturally want privacy and Republicans will tell their voters that TikTok is spyware and banning it preserves their privacy. This is how it works now, part of the country is its own reality distortion field and it's pointless to argue with them.

They make closed toe nonslip Crocs. Whether they are considered "professional looking" is up to op but they are comfortable

If you buy two pairs and swap them out every day they will last longer. If you wear shoes every day, especially the water resistant ones you'd wear in a kitchen, they don't ever dry out fully. This allows microbes to grow that make your eyes stinky but it also makes the shoes fall apart faster.

I'm just picturing all the hipsters salivating over the hairless rescue cat with a Mexican gang tattoo

I really hope this tool doesn't get expanded for use against all sexually explicit images. Not to be that guy but invasions of individual privacy and freedom of speech are typically used first against people that most would have little sympathy for, like child abusers and violent criminals, before being used on everyone else. The first criminals Obama deported under his new rules were pedophiles but it wasn't long before they were deporting grandmother's because they were the receptionist for a white collar criminal. This tool in it's present form seems great but it is very powerful and could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands

It's really easy to make a chatbots say racist things, this isn't any kind of accomplishment. He just wants head pats from some right wing assholes so he's giving them a talking point.

That problem is on apple. They're the ones who want to have their own proprietary connector, they're the ones creating problems for everyone who doesn't buy their brand.

I used to work at a grocery store that had the kind of forklift you walk behind so you don't need to be an adult to operate them. One day the store manager goes around to everyone handing out a sheet of multiple choice questions and a sheet with the answers, then when they fill out the questions he gave them a little slip of paper that said they were "forklift certified".