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Not to downplay the Modi thing but ... honorary Ph.D.s are handed out left and right, and it's common for politicians to just buy one. They mean very little, and making that into a scandal is just showing lack of creativity to show the real scandals, of which there should be plenty.

Those sterilized during Nazi rule would like a word.

A Dane not in Greenland I suppose.

Yes, living and working in Greenland would most likely make me concerned for my future.

How are US tech folks more enabling Trump than anybody else who pays tax there?

Some, by working for companies (big tech) that have given little resistance to trump but rather funded his ball room, etc. Sadly, everyone quitting those companies would not really be a reasonable solution either, though there are more possible actions than that

"Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, spent more than $290 million supporting Donald Trump and his MAGA allies on the campaign trail last year." [1]

"Exclusive: How Palantir's Alex Karp went full MAGA" [2]

Look at All In Podcast - tech VCs - they are all in support of this administration.

[1] https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

[2] https://www.axios.com/2025/10/23/trump-alex-karp-palantir-ma...


Context was "The Americans on HN driving tech, ...". I'm not sure that includes Elon.

> National security?

Plus, punishing exactlty those Nato partners who are sending military there to see how to strengthen the defense. That shows you don't want Greenland stronger, militarily. You want it weaker to have less issues when you invade it.


Had Merkel not opened the border in 2015, Germany would be far worse off. If you ever set foot into a German retirement home, hospital, restaurant, random shop at the central station, cinema, xmas market, you name it, you realize that all those immigrants are currently carrying the economy.

She should get a prize for this instead of being blamed. Even if you don't care about the moral aspect of helping refugees.


In Germany, 23% of the people in working age, don't work [1]. The "refugees are carrying the economy", because you are effectively paying 23% of the local working age population (I'm here assuming you aren't paying refugees to go there and not work, right?) to slack. Remove their benefits and see how quickly you don't need to import people to do those jobs.

And no, I don't care about the "moral aspect" of not "helping refugees". If you care, you welcome them into your own place.

Also, notice how you didn't go into the gas deals Merkel did with Russia and forced upon the rest of the EU.

[1]: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/employment-rate

EDIT: 23%


From the same site, the same stat for the US is 41% LOL

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate

Edit: also you can't do math well -- it's 100 - 77 = 23 (not 33)


You can't just give any random job to any random person. Go out on the street, talk to the first homeless person and then tell me that for your mom's hip replacement surgery next week for which a Syrian doctor is scheduled, you rather see that person scheduled. And the rehab for which an Afghan immigrant is scheduled, you would prefer the homeless' friend next to him, smelling of Jägermeister. After you did that, we talk again.

>I'm here assuming you aren't paying refugees to go there and not work, right? incorrect

The US economy is currently to overwhelming extent a bunch of tech companies betting hard on that AI will revolutionize everything. With huge circular economy. Once that bubble bursts, you'll see where you really stand

It's hard to know beforehand. Like with most foundational research.

My favorite example is number theory. Before cyptography came along it was pure math, an esoteric branch for just number nerds. defund Turns out, super applicable later on.


>to keep temperatures cosier through the winter without turning up the thermostat.

Point of a thermostat is to not have to do this.

Requires a well calibrated heating system though, depending on outside temperature.


Um, nobody builds a house without modern insulation (rock wool etc) and 3-pane windows. It wouldn't be legal either.

Build, no. But here in New England (Boston suburbs) even double-pane windows are still quite rare, because most houses are ~100 years old or more.

I live in Edinburgh, and 100 year old buildings are the newest ones in the city. A good chunk of the city is what we call a “conservation area” - so you can’t modify the aesthetic of the building (windows included), but the vast vast vast majority of people outside that space have double glazed windows I’d wager.

Windows have a lifetime of only 15-30 years, though. If you have to replace them anyway, you might as well get double-pane (even if the rest of the house isn't well insulated).

I think this is the stated lifetime of insulated windows. But obviously single glazed windows were never insulated in the first place so there is no practical lifetime on them...

In my house and on my road a lot of the glass is 150+ years old.


Haha. Made of what? Come on, around here there are plenty of wooden doors and windows 70-100 yo and this is a humid climate.

What does 'lifetime' mean? Mine are nearly all original.

Windows last hundreds of years because glass lasts hundreds of years.

Modern windows don't last very long, because the seals leak, and the argon gas or whatever leaks out. The glass is still good, but the insulative quality is gone.

The parent poster didn't realize that if you don't have double pane windows, you have single pane windows, which have no gas to leak.


Even if it's mostly air it insulates quite a bit better than single pane windows. Of course worse than with the original gas filling, as the windows are optimized for maximum distance between the glass panes without having the inner gas start to "circulate" - which starts to happen at a smaller distance for air than for the noble gasses.

Yes, for sure. My house is 65 years old, and all the windows have leaked.

But my point was that windows, the glass part, lasts centuries, if not longer. Not the mere decades cited upstream.


I live in the UK and nobody is replacing windows every 15 years. 30 _maybe_

That is the stated lifetime - but they typically last much longer.

That depends where you are. Here in Australia the default is single glazed windows, and double glazed is hideously expensive, especially to retrofit.

Sounds you're somewhere with some actual building standards though.


Also in australia, the BCC/NCA is an absolute joke compared to basically every other industrialized country. There’s a reason for the annual “Austrlian houses dont meet WHO minimum standards” articles.

As an example single pane windows havent been effective or widely used since the 70-80s in north america and europe. And both places energy standards effectively preclude them since 2000ish. Or insulation in australia is effectively absent in pre 2000s, and maybe R-4ish on a new build now. Conversely NA was R-4 in the 70-80s and it would be about R-6 (or more) these days.

Our residential solar and heat pump uptake is great. But for building standards and quality were a joke.


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