So far, there’s been a good bit of money to be made in timing the stock market to announcements. But I’m sure no American politician would be involved with insider trading.

This is a fair point. China treats workers poorly, and they leverage labour camps for minorities.

The whole “China bad America good” concept has been put in a different light of late.

Does EU/North America fear truly China because of its expansionist policies, or simply because their skin is a different colour? It’s not like the USA is above tampering in foreign government and bugging electronics.

I say go for it, Canada. If only because it’ll push Tesla off the scoreboard without the tariffs. They can’t compete.

Putin is personally immensely wealthy and, additionally he effectively controls the economy of Russia. Trump is neither - his personal assets are dwarfed by half a dozen Americans alone. Plus as @aseriesoftubes@lemmy.world says, he likes the attention and it doesn’t take much to stroke his ego.

If it’s part of a system, I suppose that’s fine. A better alternative could be expanding the sidewalk and providing patio space for restaurants etc. But if the plan is “we paint white lines and put up parking meters and it will slow people down”, then f that. It’ll just cause accidents and reinforces the area as a driving destination.

A permanent, predictable bike lane doesn’t impact traffic nearly as much as random cars parked on the street (everyone in the lane has to move over), but these people never complain about too much street parking.

The RO system is dependent on the membrane. Theres a level of standardization for membranes and pre-filters. This is an example: https://www.freshwatersystems.com/products/axeon-5-stage-ro-system-50-75-gpd Conversely, there’s a lot of branded systems that require special format filters and membranes (https://www.premierh2o.com/ro-pure-plus-voc-system), which can naturally only be sourced from the manufacturer. A good 4-stage system can be sourced for about $200 give or take.

RO was developed to desalinate water. Therefore, if you use a salt-based ion exchange water softener (the standard water softener) and then run that through an RO, it’ll be a pretty straightforward process. The more pressure you can provide up front (within the specs of the system), the more efficient the system will be. (Actually, it’s the pressure differential that really makes a difference, so if you’re pulling out one cup at a time, it’s less efficient than pulling out a litre). If your water is very hard, there will be more brine produced. There are ways to minimize that waste (effectively by injecting it into the hot water supply), if that’s important to you.

A distiller will have the same problems any boiler will have.

I’ve got a softener and a RO. It comes in between 450 and 550ppm and leaves around 30-70ppm. You typically want to see a >90% reduction; less than that and the membrane needs replacing or you may have pressure issues.

And it’s getting harder to find powder. Try finding powder dishwasher detergent… locally, nothing.

Don’t need to advance when the battle is being fought in the White House.

I fear for the future of western democracy.