It's not just repairing cars, I told a coworker I replaces the fuse in my Bosch blender and he looked at me as if I was insane. "But what if it catches fire?" was his reply.
Dragging my team to the nearest maker space for a teambuilding exercise as soon as I figure out how to convince HR to pay for it. People need to know things do not catch fire if you repair it.
I dunno... I had a microwave that came on when you opened the door... turns out it would boil water with the door closed without entering time too... Thanks GM, love the "safe" microwave that nobody can service. Replaced with the dumbest microwave option I could find.
There is no all else equal here. If your new member is the Democratic Republic of Congo the number would go up considerably. With Sweden/Finland it might very well go down since the border is far more defensible. But the US has a global footprint and those troops in Europe are nearer to potential conflicts in the middle east and northern Afrika, so it might make logistical sense to park them there anyway.
Given that we (Sweden) have been the preferred partner with Norway for NATO winter training exercises since the 1980s and our entire military strategy was based on "Nato will protect us if Putin invades" you are not wrong.
What changed was USA having people like Trump and the Republican party talk about not protecting NATO countries anymore. It made us realize that we can't continue to count on US help as the premise is based on the US having absolute control of the nuclear weapons, but loading them on NATO ally dual capable airplanes to launch the nukes.
If Europe is not convinced that the US will not share the nukes as agreed, then Europe has to actually rearm and might even casue a nuclear proliferation with France and UK restarting their nuclear programs.
so yeah it changes and not changes the geopolitics.
This is why Sholtz and Marcon are having a bit of a public disagreement.
Germany really do not want to send soldiers to Ukraine. For a whole lot of internal very German reasons their military is not in a good position for armed conflict.
And this one on Germany's very cumbersome procurement tgat is part of why Germany is not keen on rearmament (apart from the obvious: they know what they did) https://youtu.be/8jDUVtUA7rg?si=Du6Rrq2TolbIIaw5
that said Macron is at the moment the only European leader outside of the Baltics that is keen on sending people to Ukraine.
This is what we have to deal with. People believing that when our enemies are arming themselves, it is somehow problematic to respond? This attitude is fading in Europe (thankfully) but I still see this far too often.
Considering the invasion of Ukraine for the second time in 10 years, and the official threats of using nuclear weapons, rearming doesn't sound as bad as before.
> and the official threats of using nuclear weapons
"Why are we shocked? Of course if a country has a weapon it also conceives a situation where it would use it. If a country would never under no circumstance use a weapon it would not have the weapon at all. Every country who has a weapon also conceives a scenario when to use it. Even if they don't issue reminders"
-- My own translation from an interview to Alessandro Barbero
To decomission a weapon is to weaken the army. Rulers must be very careful about taking power from the army, as army officials are wary of being stripped of power. A ruler must be in the good grace of the army.
For that reason, it is difficult to get rid of inherited weapons. A plausible justification is required.
With Putin, however, Russia is strenghtening an army. It is correct in this case, I think, to verbally remind your enemies of the threat they represent. E.g.Trump, in the US, has a strong discourse position to pull the US from conflict, because his supporters want "To make America great again", the world be damned.
Sweden joining means they have lost the Baltic Sea as the only entrance is now controlled by two NATO countries.
Finland Joining has helped lock down the Baltic sea but most importantly is a staging ground for cutting logistics to the largest military complex on the Kola peninsula.
This war is not just about Russias energy politics, it's also very much about their need for more maritime access.
THis map shows where Russia has their ports, and now 4 important ports are pretty much neutralised. Kaliningrad, St Peterburg, and the Krimean Naval Complex are all locked in by NATO countries which means a naval blocade of Russia is very very easy and would completely render their navy's impotent. THe fourth one is on the Kola peninsula and this is why Finland is important as a staging ground to attack the railways to make the Murmansk complex isolated and within medium range missile range from Nelim and Kirkenes.
THis leaves Petrapavlovsk-Kamchatskiyiv (North of Japan) and Valdivodstock (Next to North Korea) the only Free Water ports that are not affected by NATO.
Interesting. You seem to know your stuff and have thought this through.
So, I was hoping to solicit your opinion on where you think Kaliningrad will be in a couple of years? (Say 5)
It probably won't be called "Koningsberg", but would you say it's probable it will become independent? Part of Lithuania, Poland? Or will it remain firmly Russian and (economically) isolated?
Many [though not enough] people in K̶a̶l̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶r̶a̶d̶ Królewiec consider themselves more European than russian. The optimistic view is that sooner or later they'll get their way. Perhaps with putler's death they might.
>a naval blocade of Russia is very very easy and would completely render their navy's impotent.
I think that may be okay in theory but is a bit of an over simplification for any real life scenario that deals with the wildcard dictator of Russia. Nothing is very very easy.
NATO is a defensive pact, if there was a NATO naval blockade there would already be war with NATO which almost certainly means escalation to nuclear war. that's my take anyway.
Japan did the same thing before and after the world wars.
This is not really that new or strange. India has been doing the same thing.
Russia as well.
it's standard practice to send people to more advanced countries to train and then have them come back and start companies based on what they have learned. this is why Patents only really work in local regions or within a Nation.
the biggest difference is that China has been so much more blatant and in your face with it, especially in the military technology sectors.
Now the biggest issue is to get those that train to come back. A lot of Russians chose not to, same with Indians, and Japanese. China has an extensive espionage network focused on keeping track of exchange students and make sure that they fall in line. Much more so than any other nation.
have a friend from Malaysia and they had this smart idea that if you study abroad and get a PhD or Masters (as I understood it) your entire student loan would be forgiven. Again people didn't move back, so the last I hear was that they tried to make it contingent on moving back to Malaysia. My info is abitout of date since it was a pre pandemic conversation I had with him.
Not anymore. It's because of visa and naturalization backlogs.
When I was a kid growing up in the 90s and 2000s, it was common for Chinese nationals to naturalize and become citizens.
When the Chinese backlog reached a decade long 10-20 years ago, a lot of top tier Chinese talent decided to return to China because employment visa hell sucks and the Chinese private sector formalized and grew.
The same thing has started to happen with Indians as well (and happened to Koreans and Taiwanese in the 80s)
A Tsinghua or Jiaotong grad might have an incentive to do graduate school in the US or work here a couple years, but there's no point spending 5-7 years to naturalize when you can return to China and get funded or get tenure.
A similar thing has started happening in India as well at tier 1 IITs and then like.
Note that Chinese emigration rate increased again due to COVID, and more Chinese are staying since then. It will be interesting to see if that sticks or not.
A lot of Chinese just hedge their bets with lives and investments in both countries (including anchor babies).
> A lot of Chinese just hedge their bets with lives and investments in both countries
Yep. Ik. I lived in Richmond for a bit back in the day when it transitioned from HKers to Mainlanders.
> Chinese emigration rate increased again due to COVID, and more Chinese are staying since then. It will be interesting to see if that sticks or not.
Yep. I personally think it's a fumble on our (America's) part.
A lot of top tier Chinese talent will gladly want to become American citizens or naturalize, but a bunch of populist anti-China measures have prevented Chinese STEM talent from naturalizing, so we aren't getting the cream of the crop anymore
> but a bunch of populist anti-China measures have prevented Chinese STEM talent from naturalizing, so we aren't getting the cream of the crop anymore
I thought it was just the green card quotas, since once you get a GC naturalizing only takes a few years. The quotas are dumb, but are not specifically anti-china.
Not GC quotas - the backlog is 2 years now for Chinese nationals
It's EO 10043 [0] that's the blocker.
If you are a Chinese national who is in some way affiliated with tbe Chinese Civil-Military fusion, you cannot get a visa to the US.
This EO is horribly written, as it essentially treats all Chinese universities or programs that get some kind of military funding (even a relatively minor grant) as part of the Civil-Military Fusion, as just about every Chinese STEM program is connected with a State Key Laboratory or the CAS.
I think that only affects Technology institutes that are run by the PLA? Like Beijing Institute of Technology or Harbin institute of technology, but they do not seem to be enforcing it for PKU, Shanghai Jiaotong, or Tsinghua.
The crazy thing is that these are generally lower tier universities in China. What a strange law. I can imagine this making those universities much less popular in future admittances.
They have State Key Laboratories as affiliated with them as well
> only affects Technology institutes that are run by the PLA
Nope. Any kind of tangentially military funded research (aka almost all of STEM) because of how vague "Civil-Military Fusion" is defined (or not defined in this case)
> What a strange law
Executive Order, not a Law.
> making those universities much less popular in future admittances
Maybe, maybe not. There isn't as much of a pull factor anymore especially after the DoJ's Thousand Talents prosecution shitshow.
Trump really fucked up the China-to-US talent pipeline which was a net benefit for us.
> they do not seem to be enforcing it for PKU, Shanghai Jiaotong, or Tsinghua
F-1 and J1/2 applications have fallen dramatically since this EO was passed (though zero COVID and the shutting down of American consulates during that affected this as well)
> The 2022-2023 school year, with 289,526 Chinese students, is the lowest number since the 2013-2014 academic year when 274,439 Chinese students attended U.S. colleges and universities. The highest enrollment number for Chinese students was 372,532 in 2019-2020.
Now that the US is processing Chinese visa applications again (and Zero Covid ended) people are applying again, but ime most Chinese nationals I've seen or interviewed at American programs tend to be those who are Chinese nationals but studied abroad (eg. In the UK or Canada).
I don't really see Tier 1 Chinese STEM graduates at lower tier American programs anymore compared to say 5-10 years ago.
If there was some dataset to parse, I'd love to test my hypothesis that most Chinese F-1 applications are now for Chinese who aren't graduates from Chinese STEM programs.
The tier 1 graduates don't need to go to lower tier American programs anymore. They've already leveled up beyond that. They are going to tier 1 programs abroad, or just going to work at a FAANG or a Chinese-equivalent (when I worked for Microsoft Research in Beijing, we lost a lot of tier 1 undergraduate new graduates to Google in California, and that was 10 years ago)
I guess my question is whether statistically speaking a MS Research Beijing caliber researcher in 2024 (or 2019) would prefer to work abroad in Bellevue or prefer to stay in China.
This is an open question and I'm not sure we'd have the granular level of data needed to test either hypothesis for at least a decade.
All I can use is anecdotal information, but that of course has biases.
I was not aware of that, thanks for sharing!
It does explain why I have seen more indian recruitment in EU from India and China since our backlog or naturalization process is only 5 years of living in the country and then 1-3 years for the bureaucracy to manage the application.
Most Tier 1/2 Indian and Chinese candidates prefer to remain in India+China instead of emigrating to the EU
Top tier employers in both countries can pay Warsaw or Prague level salaries (eg. An IIT Kanpur class of 2024 undergraduate's average starting base salary is US$30,000 in India alone [0]), and you aren't going to be a de facto indentured servant
Generally, Indian+Chinese talent that emigrates to the EU tend to be those whose career growth is limited due to attending non-target schools or lower tier companies.
This excludes graduate students at top tier European institutions (eg. TU Munich, EPFL, etc) who are there explicitly for research, but end up returning to their home countries due to competitive tenure or funding offers.
20 years ago, a Chinese or Indian national attending TU Munich for a PhD would probably stay in Europe, but nowadays they get competitive tenure track offers at IITs or Double First Class Universities.
Blatant is another way of saying successful. Not many countries have system in place to incentivize reverse brain drain, and even in PRC that was hard fought. It's difficult to compete with US tech wages propped up by cheap money. Big reason why PRC can get talent to come back, and with IP is because they pay accordingly and, most importantly, have system in place where that knowledge can be exploited. Another big reason is, and let's be real, East Asians have bamboo ceiling (relative to whites, south asians) in western tech/science. At some point, for some Chinese in western tech, a comfortable salary isn't enough when PRC offers appropriate senority/status and opportunity to build/lead and can compensate/execute accordingly. People aren't happy with good 6 figure salary when they think they deserve 7-8 figure.
People here forget PRC "seaturtles" going back to grow domestic PRC industries is as much a PRC enticement success as US/western retainment failure.
> Not many countries have system in place to incentivize reverse brain drain
Most regional powers do.
The Chinese program is based on Japan's METI, Taiwan's MEA, and Israel's MoE.
These 3 countries devised the primary reverse brain drain programs that countries like China, South Korea, Turkey, India, etc began emulating in the 2000s-2010s.
I suppose more accurate to characterize not all are successful as preventing/reversing brain drain to maintain/grow competitiveness.
PRC emulating 2000s challenges JP/TW recognized is expected. Difference is in execution/available playbook, PRC has growing R&D budget and commercial opportunties to brain drain from likes of JP/TW now, and that's mostly side effect of scale and PRC dumping resources into relevant sectors to compete for top talent. Not as much as US, but enough to entice. It's also failure of others to retain, JP is starting to terminate 10 year academic positions from 2010s designed for job security and they're not being recycled into JP corporate, so they leave for greener pastures abroad, including to PRC. TW... just has tertiary over capacity and not enough domestic opportunities, they also go abroad also including to PRC. SKR... annecdotally it seems like many stay abroad because there's not much opportunities other than being chaebol wage slave. VS last few years, more and more PRC talent/students abroad either see writing on the wall for their future prospects in west due to geopolitics but also know there's _real_ money to be made in PRC strategic sectors. 1000 talent / China Initative crackdown may have accelerated process but it's also increasingly obvious there's a lot of money and prestige to be had, and I think latter undervalued for those who feel stuck due to corporate/geopolitical bamboo ceiling.
TBH PRC also has tertiary overproduction but there isn't capacity to meaningfully brain drain amount of talent PRC is producing abroad. And it looks like some don't even want PRC talent to risk that due to muh IP. Simulatenously, PRC has enough resources/opportunities at top to reverse brain drain some of the few (relative to population) high end talent that went abroad. 0.01% of PRC are overseas, vs 1% of JP vs 3% of TW & SKR. I think that's a a large power strategy, and specifically a large population power strategy, make so much talent that there's always ample talent, and invest more in absolute terms to retain and even drain from others who can't afford to. Regional powers don't get this playbook.
Last years report on brain drain from top 10/100/1000 indian institutions was staggering, but IMO they'll have the same advantages as PRC once domestic opportunities pickup. Israel's pretty successful for various reasons. Turkey I'm not too familiar with other than they're defense industry is growing.
Alternatively, SK and Japanese companies have succeeded in expanding foreign R&D capacity significantly (starting with China in the early 2000s) and there isn't as much a need to remain within JP+SK anymore.
For example, SK and JP expat talent is fairly common in VN, TH, and IN now where they are managing local divisions in those countries.
This largely connects with both Japan and SK's "Flying Geese Paradigm" (雁行形態論) to use Japanese and Korean R&D capacity to build newer markets abroad, and cultivate a secondary tier of R&D capacity.
This was a major reason why Japanese manufacturers heavily invested in electronics R&D in Thailand, Malaysia, China (before 2013), and India along with SK's similar attempts in Vietnam and China (before 2017).
Most of these Koreans and Japanese abroad continue to work for Korean and Japanese companies or (if in the US) on funded scholarships or research from both governments.
> Last years report on brain drain from top 10/100/1000 indian institutions was staggering
Which report?
The only Indian institutions that matter are Institues of National Importance (INI), and very few graduates (usually around 1-5%) from those programs go abroad excluding for graduate study, based on placement statistics since 2017.
During the 2011-17 period there was a structural slowdown in the Indian economy due to an infra lending crisis which was resolved by Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian, and Krishnamurthy Subramanian's reforms [0]
IME, after the Indian economy stabilized by 2018, most Indians abroad tend to be from non-target institutions, or those who's careers hit a rut as they were unable to be placed at a tier 1 employer (usually a company or government agency that can pay a $10-15k a year starting salary).
> Regional powers don't get this playbook.
Agree to disagree.
The primary difference between China and other countries is that China wouldn't allow significant ownership in R&D FDI within China, thus creating a de facto firewall between domestic talent and R&D capacity abroad.
Most Japanese and Korean companies already tired from that policy and began decoupling in the 2010s, and China was never as closely integrated into the American innovation system as Israel and India (thus leading to the development of local R&D champions).
This is NOT to say China is inferior, but this is to say that there is a level of protectionism in Chinese R&D capacity that isn't as common in other countries (even Russia pre-2022), and increasingly incentivizes Chinese R&D to remain relatively insular.
Most other countries don't have the need to develop hyper-insular R&D capacities as international cooperation remains fairly high.
Red V-Raptor S35 XL has 16.5 stops of dynamic range with 250-12,800 ISO.
ARRI Alexa 35 has 17 stops of range with 160-6400 ISO.
Both use rolling shutters, both have native ISO of 800. Alexa has better low light noise reduction at higher ISO, but Alexa is sharper and has better dynamic range in low light since it uses 8K to 4K down sampling.
The real difference is in the colour straight out of the chip and how the workflow is for DIT on set.
THe major difference I think is that Arri is already easy to use and slots in to the Hollywood human knowledge base and workflows while RED was mostly used by indie filmmakers, documentarians, Youtubers, and Silicon valley people (if you work at Apple in the US you can buy RED cameras cheaply through company benefits). This pretty much created a different culture of what images should look like around the two cameras. an Alexa camera sets you back close to 80K and a fully equiped RED sets you back about 44K. So its easier to buy it and use it while hollywood rents it on the day for the shoots.
You can get a RED to look like it was shot on Alexa and vice versa in post processing today, but the people who work with the different cameras have different cultures of what is "cinematic" image.
and you have to consider that train-stations are older and have better layout to get people on and off trains than airplanes that have tighter security even on inter EU travel for EU citizens.
One thing that is really annoying with traveling in EU via train is that there is no simple way to book tickets even with InterRail/EuroRail app. I did a vacation where i traveled around between Netherlands, Germany, Denmark Sweden and Poland back and forth and if you want a reserved seat you have to order it in advance for Poland and have your paper tickets sent to you in your home country 2 weeks in advance.
If you are in Poland you can do reservations the same day.
An other problem with reservations is that they are only for the train you have reserved on, and in Germany and Denmark there is a high probability that your train will be delayed to the point of being replaced with a train with fewer cabins, meaning you won't have a seat.
Might not sound like a big deal but on a trip from Copen hagen to Berlin that is 7 hours or a trip from Berlin to Katowice that is 8 hours, not having a seat is fast becomming an issue.
You simply wont get business people to travel with trains like that. EU seems to have made the decision that inter european travel by train is for young people in their early 20s and goods containers.
But within European countries the internal travels are usually not a problem and quite nice. Except in Southern Sweden. The commuter trains are a complete mess and has been ever since it was privatized.
Dragging my team to the nearest maker space for a teambuilding exercise as soon as I figure out how to convince HR to pay for it. People need to know things do not catch fire if you repair it.