Trains are easy and they’re easily electrified already. So putting solar on the trains won’t have any advantage.

Rails are the difficult part of railways. They never seem to put them between my house and my work. They’ve put something called a road in between instead.

Not when you consider the maintenance costs of the plants they closed. Basically of them were beyond original design life.

And the democracy sausage!

“Regular people”

https://bankingjournal.aba.com/2024/08/survey-one-in-four-americans-have-less-than-1000-in-savings/

You’ve proven yourself wrong.

Mochi Tetsu is mentioned in that article as being a source that produces higher quality products than iron sand. Exactly what you’re arguing against.

The facts are that due to the limited availability of good quality iron ore the steel produced in Japan often used iron sand and that led to lower quality products.

Why? The past lives long in the memory.

Sony was at the Vanguard of Japan’s post-war recovery. Making any electronics for the home.

Rice cookers and standard small white goods in the 40s.

They had a huge success with the transistor radios in the mid 50s.

Bearing in mind transistors themselves were first created in 1947. Sony is putting them in consumer products 8 years later. Copying a product produced in small numbers but making it better. Using the latest technology.

I own a 1960s reel to reel machine that still works perfectly. Sound on sound recording, echo and reverb effects. Built using transistors and “solid state” amplifies. Not at the cutting edge but using transistors to mass produce a product more reliably than previous tech.

All high fi equipment following the same pattern. Can they replace the old style amplifiers in record players. Yep.

The cassette tape comes along Sony makes it portable. And this is the point they also start hitting the top of the market in quality.

The portable tape decks Sony produced are considered the best.

This is while they’re dealing with videotape and producing betamax and the first consumer recorders and cameras.

Sony is a mark of reliability from the 50s by replacing old tech with transistors and a mark of quality by being better than the mass market competition by the 70s.

They then look at digital and create their own media. Betamax is a war they eventually lost even though it was better quality than VHS. But they made money on the professionals end of the market because of that quality.

This moved Sony into that direction. Focusing on the premium product, aiming high and for the mass market, but with the idea that quality will guarantee the high end segment.

In audio

Digital cassette DCC, DAT CD SACD Competition for Dolby Surround SPDIF optical audio. LDAC Bluetooth protocol

All the devices to play and record/transmit these.

In video: U-matic Betamax MMCD (mothballed to then partnering with DVD) Blu-ray Blu-ray 4K

The devices to play and produce them. The media to go on them from Sony Music and Sony Pictures.

Displays they created Trinitron displays to go with their analogue video cameras and formats.

They produced the first LED backlit LCDs. They produced the first quantum dot displays to go with the professional cinema quality digital cameras.

In the computing world they produced the first 3.5" floppies then CDs, then flash memory storage.

They tried to partner with Nintendo on the first CD-Rom gaming system and, when they were kicked out, launched their own console.

Sony have aimed for the professional market and bring those lessons learned to the masses.

Always based around a media format.

1999 Sony produced SACD. R&D in audio finished when that wound up in 2007.

High end audio equipment before that point is great. After that it’s just badges up stuff made to the lowest price.

2006 Sony produced Blu-ray. Blu-ray 4K looks to be the last gasp in 2016.

They were aiming for the top with video, TVs and blu ray players were great.

They’re still the best quality audio and video products you can buy.

But no one is buying them. We left quality of CDs for the convenience of mp3. We left Blu-ray for streaming.

We left high quality physical products for software products and codecs for convenience.

We left individual electronic devices for smart phones.

Sony have stopped R&D and quality control on devices as the market for them has dropped.

You can still buy a great high end TV from Sony.

Everything else, they’ve let the high end go.

If the high end isn’t mass market. Then they’re not going to make it high end anymore.

But as the last mass manufacturer to leave so many segments over the years. The cheapest high end device is still often a second hand Sony.

When the high end drops out of a segment all the individual components they would mass produce get penny pinched. Before they would produce huge numbers of lasers for CD players and make sure they were all good enough across the whole range.

When no one wants a high end CD player, no more high quality lasers get made.

The same with each component. Amplifiers, connectors, buttons, power supplies.

Sony’s products borrowed from each other’s tech and as the high end went in one area it had knock on effects in others.

Look at the PS5, the components are not produced in Japan by Sony. They’re outsourcing.

The 4K Blu-Ray disk drive is optional.

They say they’re unlikely to ever release their 8K Blu-Ray standard.

Top quality is no longer a priority and you place 20 years ago about right for audio. Probably 10 years ago for video.

The playstation 3 was Sony’s last CD player in a console. The last to be backwards compatible. The last of the Sony attitude of trying to be the best and trying to be backwards compatible.

The best CD players, SACD, players, DVD players etc all come in one Sony 4k UHD Blu Ray box.

Then you need a decent receiver and speakers to take that digital signal through a DAC, and amplify it. The last vestage of high end Sony audio is there.

The TVs the last of Sony’s high end lines in general.

The best portable cd players without breaking the bank, old Sony’s.

Incorrect

Yes, but your country being unable to have sensible judicial selection and poor judicial elections is not an argument for anywhere else.

The US ranges from failure to bad.

Other countries range from the good to the point other countries refuse to replace their own court system in order to continue using the good judiciary that’s trusted internationally.

Using the US as an example to follow in this case is a bad idea. Even if removing selection from the US system would be an improvement, it isn’t relevant anywhere else.

Especially when discussing an ideological law like making elections compulsory.

There are no illusions that politicians are experts.

Authority given to a judge is because of expertise, not in order to represent.

Elect representation, select expertise. Ensure oversight for both situations.

I’ve said before oversight is already in place be a democratically elected official. So stop with the silliness in claiming I’m antidemocratic.

The difference between you and me is you’re sprouting ideology and I’m explaining how a good system actually works in the real world in my country.

Asking millions of unqualified people to pick an expert and professional will not be as successful as an unbiased selection committee.

Not every problem is solvable with a popularity contest.

As long as a committee has democratic oversight democracy can still fix any problems as you wish. But it’s much more efficient and successful most of the time.

Resign from the senate.

Rather than just going back to that job after the campaign.

This campaign is literally zero cost for him as it stands. He’s a senator and will continue being a senator if he loses.

He should be forced to resign for things he’s done and admitted doing publicly.

So the problem with elected judges is the elections.

There are solutions to that. One of which is to appoint.

There are problems with appointed judges in America no doubt. Changes to appointments could definitely solve them. Elections most likely won’t.

Politics is inevitable and unavoidable. Your choice of sandwiches is ultimately political. Let alone judges.

Partisan politics is avoidable.

Avoid partisanship in the justice system and then you solve a lot of problems.

Well if that’s the meaning of "political you’re using then all judges are. That’s why I put it in quotes in my last reply, I assumed you meant partisan. Otherwise you’d have been making an irrelevant point.

Unfortunately the US has a storied history of elected local judges allowing lynchings, for example, while the appointed federal courts passed civil rights so I won’t be taking notes.

Of course the appointed judges and elected judges are now targeting women and minorities. So your appointment system is also broken.

Again, not taking notes.

An attempt to be representative is not equal to being “political”.

It’s actually a strength of the system that minorities get some representation rather than being always voted into zero representatives. And they still have to pass the standards to be considered as experts in the field.

No system is perfect, but look at America. Small area elections for judges produce poor corrupt picks. Large area elections produce partisan fights with extremists campaigning against each other.

There’s no country which is a good advert for directly electing judges.

The UK has an independent Judicial Appointments Commission.

Which can be overruled by an elected official but generally is directed to pick on merit and allowed to do so.

Allowing professionals to pick experts and only stepping in when there is a problem is much better to me than direct elections which quickly become partisan and obstructive to professional candidates.

I’m going for UK, specifically Scotland.

VLC

Exceptions are possible. Money isn’t everything for everyone.

“On 31 December 2009, rather than being fully privatised, the mint ceased to be an executive agency and its assets were vested in a limited company, Royal Mint Ltd. The owner of the new company became The Royal Mint trading fund, which itself continued to be owned by HM Treasury. As its sole shareholder, the mint pays an annual dividend of £4 million to the Treasury, with the remaining profits being reinvested into the mint.[58] In 2015, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a £20 billion privatisation drive to raise funds, with the Royal Mint being up for sale alongside other institutions including the Met Office and Companies House.[55]”

“Then in 2016, the mint announced plans for Royal Mint Gold (RMG), a digital gold currency that uses blockchain to trade and invest in gold. Operated by CME Group, the technology is to be[out of date?] created by technology companies AlphaPoint and BitGo.[69]”

Bring it back into public ownership. It’s been partially privatised and the vultures are extracting what they can.

It’s not completely nonsensical for the government to lose a small margy on making currency. It’s useful and the harder it is to counterfeit the better.

But both “New Labour” and the Conservatives have a lot to answer for when it comes to our national assets being lost.

Is the internet scarier?

Or is it just millennials and “internet natives” having kids and more of them knowing better what the internet actually is.

I tell people to imagine a public place with everyone in it, the majority wearing masks or costumes. With constantly recording surveillance. Do you take off your mask.

Sure the mask is not perfect protection, and there are areas off to the side where people seem to not be wearing masks. But go ahead and choose a way to keep your kids safe.

It would also negate the point of the legislation that means they have to accept stamps in the first place.

You should not have to visit a post office in person or online to post a letter.

There are letter boxes in walking distance. If you’ve bought a book of stamps everything you need is in your desk.

That’s the system we have and it would never be designed by a business that way. But it’s a business that’s taken on that system alongside the I infrastructure for it.

If you genuinely depend on the post accessibility to it is important. It could be modernised but it was working before, modernisation and cost saving are not the same thing.