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Canada is in the same boat as the EU -- desperately looking for alternative vendors at the moment.

Canada's government is not looking for MS or AWS alternatives.

i wouldnt be surprised if theyre talking about it internally, and avoiding saying it out loud until they've secured alternative options

Is this going to be like that submarine that guy built to bring people to the Titanic?

>Is this going to be like that submarine that guy built to bring people to the Titanic?

Doubtful. Might seem counter intuitive but in some ways space is an easier problem then under water, at least once you get up there. The pressure differential between ~vacuum and 1 atmosphere obviously is just one atmosphere, and outward instead of inward, whereas you get to 1 atm of pressure (14.6 psi) in water at almost exactly the 10m mark (in salt water). The Titanic wreck (which is what the sub you're referring to was designed to reach) is at 3800m, at which point the pressure is around 380 atm (~5600 psi). Any failures are going to be absolutely catastrophic with no time to react. Whereas a space station can handle small leaks just fine for quite awhile (as ISS has had to [0]) if it has some buffer, it's "just" a supply loss and if it became too much would mean people having to get into a safe area or suits and eventually abandon it in the worst case, but it doesn't go pop like a soap bubble. And such things can definitely be patched. Assuming normal proven safety procedures are followed (most importantly having some margin and constant backup life boats or rooms sufficient for all humans on board until all can get to Earth) an impact or mistake or the like might put the station out of business but should be very survivable.

At any rate nothing like the titan, where IIRC the implosion went supersonic and thus they literally didn't even know what did them in because the collapse front was faster then the speed of human nerve signal propagation (120 m/s at best, usually lower).

----

0: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-international...


> "That's over 150 atmospheres of pressure!"

> "How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?"

> "Well, it's a spaceship. So I'd say anywhere between zero and one."


Things aren't perfect in a lot of countries, but what is happening in the US right now is absolutely unique. Things are careening out of control, and the political system seems completely incapable of getting a handle on it.

Most people I speak to in Canada, Europe and Central America seem perplexed why Americans they know do not seem more alarmed.


> Seem perplexed why Americans they know do not seem more alarmed.

It's because we live in the beginnings of a dual state:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/opinion/renee-good-ice-im...

Quoting the key point:

> The two components of the dual state are the normative state — the seemingly normal world that you and I inhabit, where, as Huq writes, the “ordinary legal system of rules, procedures and precedents” applies — and the prerogative state, which is marked (in Fraenkel’s words) by “unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees.”

> “The key here,” Huq writes, “is that this prerogative state does not immediately and completely overrun the normative state. Rather, Fraenkel argued, dictatorships create a lawless zone that runs alongside the normative state.”

> It’s the continued existence of the normative state that lulls a population to sleep. It makes you discount the warnings of others. “Surely,” you say to yourself, “things aren’t that bad. My life is pretty much what it was.”

More at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/05/trump-e...


Excellent article, thanks.

It’s not that we’re not alarmed, it’s that voters are unable to do anything about it for the next several months (if even then).

They could peacefully protest

Protest only works if there’s someone to listen. The Republicans in Congress don’t care what their constituents want.

There have been peaceful protests all over the country for months. Have you not been paying attention?

And there will be more, and soon (tomorrow -- 20-Jan-2026 -- in fact)[0]

[0] https://www.freeameri.ca/


>Things aren't perfect in a lot of countries, but what is happening in the US right now is absolutely unique

It's not unique. If anything, it's inevitable regression to the mean. Entropy rises eventually and does this


It's already been walked back.

Not in the sense of being a "subtly or significantly incorrect solution".

Ask every American AI company what they think of IP protections. Apparently all intellectual property is fair game now.

IP was useful in its time, but it is obsolete in this age.

1. Dont live in the suburbs. 2. Make an effort to see friends every week. 3. Log off.

Interesting definition of freedom. The top three countries happen to be the places most permissive to international tax dodgers.


> produced by the Heritage Foundation

> Twelve are the factors related to four key aspects of the economic environment that are graded from 0 to 100 and averaged to determine a country’s score: rule of law (and related sub-categories: property rights, government integrity, judicial effectiveness); government size (government spending, tax burden, fiscal health); regulatory efficiency (business, labor and monetary freedom); open markets (trade, investment and financial freedom).

Quite the definition they made up.


> produced by the Heritage Foundation

why bother to read past that? save yourself some time.


What do you mean by tax dodgers?

The US allows much more tax dodging than Singapore, for example. Try not paying your taxes or violating any other law in Singapore any time, if you want to find out.


The US isn't exactly known as a model of good governance either.


Chinese companies are optimized to grow and build stuff. US companies are optimized to deliver returns to shareholders.


Chinese stocks have historically done poorly due to poor governance and auditing failures.


No matter what your politics are, this is a pretty dark turn for the United States.


I’d bet $40 that no conservative will agree with that, and $60 that very few conservatives will agree with that.


A rather bizarre digression...


It sounds like they got freaked out on the road, swerved and hit a car next to them, and now have concocted a story where it’s actually the fault of immigrants.


The theory "Canadians made this up to explain their own bad driving" requires an explanation of why there was also a large enough rise in accidents that car insurance rates needed to double.

The theory "it happened like they said it" explains why the rise in accidents happened, and fits with normal driving habits in Hong Kong.


I'm talking specifically about this ridiculous story. Sure, it might connect to this broader phenomenon, but it sounds like you don't even know for sure if an immigrant was involved!


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