Why is 'legitimate' local government the hurdle here? Surely the presence of foreign troops killing civillians and destroying infrastructure counts as an occupation.

> Surely the presence of foreign troops killing civillians and destroying infrastructure counts as an occupation

The closest comparison would be domestic counter-terrorism, i.e. if one assumes Gaza is part of Israel. (Which, de facto, it is.)

Gaza was de facto administered by the civilian arm of Hamas on the eve of Oct 7, and throughout while there was still infrastructure to speak of, and this is the only sense I understand the term "de facto" to mean when used unqualified; what entity performs the day-to-day administration and security.

I think in the context of the article it might be more skill related - eg if you were the only engineer in a room full of people making engineering decisions.

You might not be marginalised in the greater business, but for a particular project or strategic issue you might be under-represented.

I know you are being facetious, but its hard to get past the uncomfortable theatre of 'this is all just fake nice for tips' if you are visiting from a non-tipping country.

Also, it's not specific brands, its specific product lines. Some of these brands make performant sunscreen, and then will have a variant (say, 'sport waterproof 12hr' or 'spray on') which underperforms.

Back in my day, we called this a pyramid scheme.

Adding/reducing friction is a reliable way to change behaviour, and the companies know this too.

I dont save my card details to prefill, I don't use nfc payments and I keep a low balance in the transaction account my debit card, in order to be more intentional about my spending.

The only people I know who purchased VR & regularly used it were weathly, childless and had enough spare space in their house to dedicate to it. Yes, you can blow $$$ on a pc but the footprint of a pc is much smaller (a desk+ chair against a wall) vs how much clear floor space they had set aside for VR.

I personally believe that VR of the arm swinging/interactive variety will never be widely adopted due to the cost of real estate in the tech savvy, trend-setting consumer population centers.

Software assistants summarising all my communications is intrusive, regardless of where the model runs.

How is it intrusive? Given charitable assumptions like granular permissions, silod app data only extracted through intents, and using only local compute?

I'm all for questioning Google on whether those assumptions will be true and no data leaves your phone, but I'm curious about the concept.

You're carrying an always on mic wired up to a closed source system with you everywhere you go already. It was already possible to stream or record everything anyway.

Is advising people to wear sunscreen and not speed also nannying? If the government ultimately bears the costs of poor health of citizens, why shouldnt they embark on public health interventions to lower those costs.

The government should not be bearing that cost. It is idiotic to ever put the state in charge of people's health.

Clearly, the best system is the one where you spend the most to get less /s

Many of Australia'a agricultural markets are isolated by strong biosecurity/quarantine restrictions. Not subsidies, but a form of protection nonetheless. There are even internal borders- transporting produce across state lines is usually restricted.