Also they dont “owe” the US anything. Trump has a cretinous understanding of economics.

This is just Mafia like extortion. It doesnt really matter now if/when these tariffs are undone - Trump has totally destroyed the US reputation as a reliable ally and trade partmer.

No deal with the US is worth the paper its written on, as everything is dependent on the whims of one person.

Presidential systems are sources of weakness and instabilty it seems. They’re no better than monarchs, and the whole system can easily be twisted into dictatorship. Look at Russia and now the US.

Its likely the friendly words will continue but the EU will delay Serbia joining.

The EU is dealing with Hungary already, plus looking with concern at whats happening in Slovakia.

Serbia won’t be joining the EU any time soon, and the EU will string Serbia along in the meantime watching what happens. They won’t want any more authoritarian regimes joining. Hungary is already a huge thorn in the aide of the EU.

Yeah, I’m not sure the BBC have. I think users have been uploading all that stuff. The BBC makes much of its archive available in the UK via iPlayer but not internationally as it has to use then commercially to help fund the organisation.

Copyright infringement is the biggest threat to the internet archive. Its already been through a case with book publishers and now its facing an existential threat woth a $400m lawsuit from the music industry.

The circumstances for a bird flu pandemic are already shockingly perfect in the US and they get worse every day.

Bird flu is running free in US farms, with limited attempts to stop it. The chances of it moving in to humans is already very high in fhe US. And the CDC is barely monitoring this anymore, the US has left WHO and now the US is abandoning flu vaccines.

The US is a perfect incubator for a major flu pandemic. It will be random luck as to how deadly a coming flu pandemic will be, but its been given the best chance to develop and spread. This is increasingly scary.

Well, Europe needs to grow a pair and tell Trump to fuck off. We need to accept that he is leaving Nato, and European countries need to take it over or set up a new organisation. He can make any deal he likes with Russia; Europe and Ukraine can just tell him no and show him the true limits of his power. He cannot dictate to Europe and he is not our president.

Being “nice” is not a policy for the UK to follow. It might be lucky to avoid some of the tariffs targetting the EU but when he wants something from the UK he will use the tariff threat.

The UK is far better off trying to improve relations with the EU and liberalise trade as much as can be achieved without reigniting the brexit debate. That might not be much.

Stop showing off your immense wealth.

Bird Flu is coming - Trump is the president of pandemics, and whose betting he will handle this one any better than covid?

The drought in summer 2025 will be Trumps Drought.

Alongside Trumps Inflation.

There is nothing other countries can really do about this except impose tariffs in kind. When american inflation goes up I hope Americans put stickers on gas pumps and more eating “Trump did this”

I’d play videogames, depending how much use you have of the hand. If you can use a controller or a mouse without discomfort I’d game. You could complete a lengthy RPG like Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldurs Gate 3. Or you could learn and play Dwarf Fortress or try and get as far as possible in Stardew Valley or whatever games you like.

Id also go out and walk - explore your city, or go hiking if you have nature near by. Its free and it beats being cooped up in your house.

Or you could make a start on a new skill. Like coding with freecodecamp.org or start learning a language.

9 days is a luxury - I’d even enjoy just lazing about, catching up with friends and family. You dont have to do anything meaningful - you could have some me time.

It’s amazing to me how so many in the US aren’t bothered about traitors who tried to overthrow their government. Shows how bad things have gotten; presumably enough Trump supporters don’t care or somehow believe it was justified!?

From outside, it honestly seems the US is slowly sliding further and further into chaos.

This story has lots more to run. Trump is giving them a 90 day reprieve but hes going to try and extract something from them.

I suspect he will still try and get them to sell to one of his cronies. And bytedance won’t do that.

Hopefully she was rushing home - maybe driving? - and couldn’t text well?

“K”, and “I am baby”?

I think you’re missing the stock market part of the dot-com bubble which is very similar to AI, and the core part of the collapse.

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble on the stock market with companies getting hugely over valued despite not being profitable on the hope they would make bank. Companies were getting huge amounts in venture capital investment, and floating on the markets to huge valuations all based on expected future earnings.

Then companies started collapsing and not being protiable and eventually the stock market in the Internet companies collapsed. But the Internet didn’t collapse; lots of startups and companies disappeared but companies with solid business models surived, grew and prospered. Amazon, Google, Ebay etc survived the bubble and dominated their areas.

The AI bubble is very similar in that companies with AI focus are getting over valued despite not being profitable. The drive int he market is the same - people want to get in at the ground floor and are not being discerning in what they invest in. Very similar to the docotm era, people don’t yet see exactly how money will be made with AI or which companies will be the ones to triumph. It’s all gambling on things people don’t really understand. The AI bubble will also pop, but again AI as a technology isn’t going anywhere - it is investors who will be harmed and a lot of companies will collapse leaving behind ones that have viable business models.

The dot com bubble burst in March 2000 due to multiple factors - a Microsoft anti trust case loss, the AOL-Time Warner merger being increasingly questioned, and rising interest rates putting pressure on the debt-driven growth of dot-cons.

Looking at AI, it’s clear there is speculative valuations going on with lots of AI companies. And established tech companies are all throwing money at AI. Meta - which has been in trouble for a while as it needs to keep growing due to the stock market but Facebook and Instagram have peaked and face more competition - first tried to pivot to VR (that’s gone very quiet suddenly!) and suddenly has pivoted to AI. Nvidia has been wildly over valued based on its chips being used in AI and other companies stockpiling them for future AI work. Companies are making expensive moves to stake a claim on future AI market share but at the moment there hasn’t been any profitability coming from these tools.

AI will survive, but a lot of companies are very obviously going to get burnt. This feeling was also prevenalt during the dot com era - the difficulty was actually picking the winners not that people didn’t know there was a speculative market bubble during the dot com era. People knew it was going to burst just as we know the AI bubble will burst.

There is no way TikTok will be sold - China won’t allow it, and it’s also technically likely nigh on impossible to just sell the “American” portion of it.

TikTok is a multinational success and highly profitable, so ByteDance aren’t going to sell it just to keep it going in the US for the benefit of Americans. They of course don’t want to shut it down as it’s hugely financially successful in the US, but a ban is the lesser evil for the company.

But it’s all nonsense anyway - Trump wants to “do a deal” over this; I doubt he’ll get anything meaningful from China but he will blowhard about some bullshit to save face and TikTok will continue, even if there is a short ban before his inauguration.

Can they impeach him once he’s in office?

If the dems manage to take back congress in 2 years I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s bogged down in impeachment proceedings for the rest of his term.

Also out of interest, can private citizens take forward the prosecution? The justice department is being stopped for political reasons but is there anything to stop a private citizens group or organisation taking forward the prosecution based on the evidence noted in the report?

I’d keep the headphones until they break and then replace. You can get a couple of USB-c adaptors and keep ithem with the headphones or in places you frequently charge. It’s still inconvenient but a bit more flexible than having one specific cable you have to fine and use all the time, and the adaptor can’t be confused for anything else so will make the whole charging process a little more straight forward (less fumbling with cables to check it’s the right one).

I wouldn’t buy new headphones just for that.

I have an Sony XM3 and I decided to get an XM5 as I wanted a headset permanently next to my PC and a set for travelling / commuting. Plus I wanted an upgrade because the reviews were so good. To be honest I still much prefer my XM3s, and wish I hadn’t bought the XM5s. They’re good but the build quality and design isn’t quite as good and the noise suppression isn’t that great really (I find sound from fans leak through a lot which is very annoying).

My point is, if you have headphones you like and are comfortable with I wouldn’t rush to give them up as newer isn’t necessarily better. Wait until you need to ad then get something good.

Lots of good advice but one question - have you tried LED bulbs before and had flickering problems?

Just worth checking a standard LED from your local super market before you go down the route of expensive brands or online purchases.

The reason I say this is that there are a lot of shoddy cheap and counterfeit electronics sold on Amazon for example. A supermarket bought bulb meanwhile actually has some quality control and standards plus you have somewhere you can go back to should you need to return them.

All my LEDs are from my local supermarket, own brand (Tesco, I’m in the UK, but Philips are also available for me) and I’ve had no issues. I’d also buy from local retailers where you can get good returns policies (Argos here, or your big box retailers in the US)

Amazon meanwhile has a policy of mixing stock that it purchases with stock from small sellers that they place in their warehouses and sending any to a customer. So a “sold by amazon” item may actually be a counterfeit item supplied by a 3rd party. Basically do not buy anything of value or branded from Amazon. So don’t buy Phillips or other brands from Amazon.

And definitely do not buy the cheap Chinese unknown brands on amaxpn or elsewhere. The supermarkets will of course be buying Chinese made bulbs for their own labels but they will be buying them in bulk from specific factories and under contracts with some quality expectations, unlike the shitty free for all small seller type sourcing that your get from Amazon. Small sellers are going to be buying cheap ass unbranded bulbs and the factories are going to sell their cheapest bulbs plus ones that’s do not meet bulk orders quality control thresholds via this route (cheaper to dump the bulbs by selling cheaply instead of having taking the financial hit and binning them). A large supermarket has leverage over the factories to maintain quality (or lose the contract) while small sellers have none.

Personally the only time I had a flickering LED bulb was a dimmer-switch lamp; it was designed for LEDs but didn’t work with the bulb I bought but turned out I’d accidentally bought a non dimmable bulb. Otherwise I’ve not had a single bulb flicker in my house including all ceiling lights and numerous lamps. All my bulbs are supermarket own brand.