You run a business from home but do not want to reveal you personal address to the world.
You are from a country that Stripe doesn’t support but need to make use of their unique capabilities like Stripe Connect, then you might sign up for Stripe Atlas to incorporate in the USA so you can do business directly with Stripe. Your US business then needs a US physical address ie virtual office.
That you don’t need an office if your company works remotely? Kind of overkill with a whole office for a company with 3 people working at it and everyone works remotely.
Obvious option would be the law firm handling your business license. But can we also take a minute to appreciate the absurdity of a PO box ever being deemed unacceptable? It literally exists for this exact purpose, and there are any number of "PO box except not a PO box" schemes out there due to this issue. It ought to be illegal to treat PO boxes differently IMO.
Mainly they want an address if they need to serve legal notice to you. You can't deliver that to a PO box, it has to be handed to someone at a physical address.
That was always meant to be transitional. Also, as China marches forward, Hong Kong loses its leverage over Beijing. Now it's just one of a dozen HK-like cities for China. It went from "little prince" to "problem child".
Certainly a factor: IIRC Hong Kong's GDP versus the mainland has gone from 20-30% to 2-3% in the ~28 years since the handover, as the mainland has modernized.
While that still puts in the ballpark of "top 5 cities", it's not quite the same (relative) prize as before.
This was a joint agreement between two sovereigns. You’re correct to say that it’s within the power of a sovereign to reneg on their word, but it’s a violation of international law and the UK would have every right as a sovereign itself to seek redress through whatever means it deems appropriate.
Except they had an agreement for 50 years to keep it that way. So basically what you mean is anyone can change their mind, which means agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
> Agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Pretty much. They are only as effective as the body trying to enforce it. The entire point of being a sovereign nation is nobody can force you to do anything. Now it is in a nation's self interest to not violate agreements and get along nicely, but sometimes the calculus changes and the punishment may not outweigh the benefits.
I don't really like what China did with Hong Kong, but some things you surely agree transcend 'contracts' or normative behavior. I can't, for example, agree to be murdered in exchange for money. I might also lie to protect my children from the local murderer, or in any other case where I'd consider the outcomes 'extereme'.
I'm pretty sure China considers that as "signing under duress" and therefor invalid.
The relevant points on the timeline, from China's perspective, are:
China: Stop selling opium in our country.
UK: How about no?
China: We're kicking out your drug dealers.
UK: How about an Opium War?
China: Oh crap, you have way more guns. We surrender.
UK: OK We're taking HK for 100 years.
China: I guess we don't have any say in the matter....
A few years later...
China: We get HK back now, right?
UK: Yeah but we've altered the terms. Take it or leave it.
China: OK. I guess.
A few years later...
China: Now we have more guns so here are the new terms. Take it or leave.
UK: But our deal!!
PRC finally enforced it. HK had high degree of autonomy (not full autonomy), and high degreed their way to not implement national security law for 20 years leading to compadrors like Lai to exist (incidentally also the largest CIA base in Asia was in HK). Imagine a region in your country with zero national security ordinance for 20 years during geopolitical competition while nativist/traitors (I'm sorry democracy activists) shake hands with Mike Pompeo lol. TLDR traitors fucked around and found out and now we finally have sustainable 1C2S.
What you are stating is exactly the viewpoint of the CCP (or any other authoritarian governments).
Everyone who advocates for basic human rights, as written in the UN's basic human rights charter, is considered a traitor, a threat to national "security", or a terrorist. They want absolutely obedient people who don't know about their own rights.
No, literally no soverign country would allow a region to operate without national security umbrella for decades, PRC was retardly patient, magnanoumous so to let HK fuck around for so long. The fact is nativist HKers tried to carve a NSL state of exception and they correctly got their shit kicked in once PRC ran out of patience. Human rights > national security is frankly absurdly unserious position to take. It's historically more normal to throw HK into the torment nexus than to have it exist without NSL coverage, that's level of security vacuum is functionally fail state behavior.
UN particapation is indeed varying level of compardour behavior, but also frequently not since you know even independant raprateurs go through filtering process frequently supported to host country to represent their geopolitical interests.
What is obviously traitorous, is shaking hands with ex head of CIA, we lie we cheat we steal Pompeo, during ongoing Sino-US geopolitical cold war, while advocating for sanctions on your own people. That's not obedience, that's treason. Like even fucking obedient people know having the right to commit treason, which Lai did, is retarded. A position an unforutnate amount of retarded HKers took to heart and frankly need to be reeducated out of.
I can't tell if this is an advocate for Chinese dictatorship or simply a terminally online foreign policy expert hobbyist. The grammar is signature pol/ncd.
Can't I be both. This just primarily PRC geopolitics shitpost account (because ppl get wierdly stalkery if I talk PRC geopolitics on main account) along with some lifting. The lack of grammar and care is because talking about geopolitics online doesn't warrant higher effort.
Regardess above comment isn't even about PRC system. It's about how HKers and their supporters who thinks it's reasonable for city of 7m to have no NSL coverage while serving as intelligence hub for PRC geopolitical adversaries is delulu and unserious position. Anyone rubbing 2 brain cells together should understand how anomlous and not sustainable that arrangement was, and indeed it was never suppose to be that way if not for sheer HK arrogance to skirt NSL implementation requirements and PRC patience.
> No, literally no soverign country would allow a region to operate without national security umbrella for decades...
In other "normal" sovereign countries, the "national security umbrella" is defined by representatives voted by the people. Suspected violators are prosecuted by a fair court, with a jury determining the validity of the charges. I don't think either of those is the case for Hong Kong.
> Human rights > national security is frankly absurdly unserious position to take.
Again, in any state with decent democracy, the law states otherwise. A nation is formed to protect the rights of its people, not to take those rights away.
> What is obviously traitorous, is shaking hands with ex head of CIA, we lie we cheat we steal Pompeo, during ongoing Sino-US geopolitical cold war, while advocating for sanctions on your own people. That's not obedience, that's treason.
That is rarely considered a national security case in any decent democratic country. He was actually exercising his freedom of speech, as defined in the UN's basic human rights charter I mentioned earlier. Limiting which political viewpoints are "allowed" is a classical, textbook example of authoritarianism.
List one normal decent democracy without NSL law. You will find the answer is none. There's a jury in some HK NSL law (for low level protestor), people got off for light greviances in the past despite Beijing protest. Lai gettign 3 judge speedrun because he's simply an obvious comprador traitor.
And let's not forget this NSL dalying was an failure of HK making, i.e. basically failed state behavior that HK incompetence generated. Frankly that's demonstration HK isn't ready for democracy at all.
And no a national is formed to sustain the nation, eitherway you can't protect people without NSL... and btw that's what PRC did, protect 1400m people from HK traitors by closing their treason lifehack loophole. It's basic statecraft.
Yes and trading secrets and espionage with geopolitical adversary is muh freedom of speech and not espionage. Again unserious, exactly why HK needs to be reeducated. You're conflating disset (speech) with collusion (treason), Lai colluded, which is unprotected speech anywhere.
> List one normal decent democracy without NSL law. You will find the answer is none.
The problem is not about the law itself. It is about how the law is defined, and moreover, the system of checks and balances. In a decent democracy, the national security law does not override the people's rights written in the constitution. The government is bound by the law to uphold due process and to respect people's basic rights, even if the suspect may have broken a law. While in authoritarian states, the constitution is basically just a joke. Don't you know China's absurd history of human rights violations?
> Lai gettign 3 judge speedrun because he's simply an obvious comprador traitor.
A quick search states otherwise. He was prosecuted by three government-picked judges, and there was no jury, which violates the standards of a fair trial.
> And let's not forget this NSL dalying was an failure of HK making, i.e. basically failed state behavior that HK incompetence generated. Frankly that's demonstration HK isn't ready for democracy at all.
Democracy means the people are in power, not the dictator. If the Hong Kong people can only vote for someone that Beijing favors, then that is not democracy. It is not possible to have a democratic system that a dictator has control over, by definition.
> ...that's what PRC did, protect 1400m people from HK traitors...
If they really wanted to protect their people, they would create a true democratic system for the city. There is no reason any western country would put sanctions on a democratic entity. And don't forget the fact that they fought really hard to gain control of the city, only to later claim it is a "huge risk to national security".
> You're conflating disset (speech) with collusion (treason), Lai colluded, which is unprotected speech anywhere.
There are no normal countries that would put people into jail for mere political speech as "treason." Such laws are only applied to acts like espionage or leaking classified information, and even those cases are bound by checks and balances.
No the problem is not process but sheer absence of NSL law and ineptitude or indifference of HKers to implement one for 20 years despite being their 1C2S obligation. If they couldn't pass NSL law in 20 years they don't deserve full democracy full stop, which btw they didn't functionally have. Also BTW know PRC killed less HKers than British did in HK during past protests. Now HK simply getting the less lethal more benevolent boot. PRC human rights in HK > UK.
> A quick search states otherwise
That's literally what I said, a 3 judge speed run. As for jury requirement, tell that to authoritarian Netherland.
> no reason any western country would put sanctions on a democratic entity
I'm just going to leave this trivially disproven quote here for posterity. It's 2025, you can trivially ask an LLM for a list, and we're not talking about western countries, we're talking about US dollar system access which US has been sanction happy with.
> mere political speech
Again, I literally distinguished between collusion vs speech. Lai working with Pompeo to sanction HK legistlators is collusion beyond speech. Which he called for publically. Plenty of cases of people thrown in jail for just speech not even in realmn of treason in west. Anyway, this is my last response, seperate libtard fantasy with libtard reality. Reality is HK is finally a normal jurisdiction with NSL coverage, which regardless of butmuhdemocracy in execution is still more accepted normal than not.
That doesn’t surprise me at all haha appreciate someone a little closer to the question answering it! I know it still counts anecdotal but I’ll take it
This is flabbergasting, how could such a large proportion of highly technical people willingly subject themselves to being shackled by iOS? They just happily put up with having one choice of browser, (outside Europe) no third party app stores, and being locked into the Apple ecosystem? I can't think of a single reason I would ever switch from an S22-25+U to an iPhone. I only went from 22U to 25U because my old one got smashed, otherwise the 22U would still be perfectly fine.
Because many of them just want to use their phone as a tool, not tinker with it.
Same way many professional airplane mechanics fly commercial rather than building their own plane. Just because your job is in tech doesn’t mean you have to be ultra-haxxor with every single device in your life.
I don't have my phone (a Pixel) because it frees me from shackles or anything like that. It's just a phone. I use the default everything. Works great. I imagine most people with iPhones are the same.
I feel like people dance around this a lot because idk it hurts nerd credibility or something. The fact is on a moment to moment basis, the iPhone is just a better experience generally. They also hold their value a lot longer. I consistently trade in my phone or sell it to other people for easily 80% of what I paid for it. Usually this is 3-4yrs out
Remember how long it took for Instagram to be functional on android phones?
I've tried them out and not a single thing about it was tangibly better IMO. They have no inherent merit above Android except that some see them as a status symbol (which is absurd as my S25U has a higher MSRP than most iPhone models)
Cameras, for starters. I’ve never seen another smart phone keep up with the quality color and texture of an iPhone’s photos/videos (videos in particular) since the 4s. Their color science is just better. We’ve intercut footage since the 7 or so with our work and frankly you’d be hard pressed to catch it wasn’t one of our nicer rigs unless we hold the shot for too long. we just can’t get other phone cameras to match footage with the same ease, especially when it comes to skin tones.
I've had way more issues with proper indentation in Python and YAML than I have with parenthesis in lisp. Meaningful whitespace is about the worst idea I've seen in a programming language.
How do you avoid overfitting with the automated prompts? It seems to add lots of exceptions from what I've seen in the past versus generalize as much as a human would.
reply