DradisPing
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User ID: 1102
DradisPing
3d ago
Is there any interest in hearing about the housing meltdown that's starting in Canada? Or is it not exotic enough for Transnational Thursdays?
DradisPing
3d ago
But the optics definitely work that way in the US and Canada, and Latin America doesn't have any desire to piss of the American left to help Haiti.
DradisPing
5d ago
There are a few reasons for the lack of candidates...
First the racial organizing that the Dems do. It's worked out well for them for the past 40 years, but there is a problem. It's hard to make a jump from being the top black organizer or the top hispanic organizer to being a leader of the entire state. So the ethnic organizers can't jump into leadership, but they are also too powerful and experienced to be thrilled about falling in line behind some white guy in his 40s. So boomer politicians (and earlier) tend to dominate because they have influence going back to before ethnic organizing was dominant.
So big rich blue states that should have deep talent pools have past their prime senators occupying space who can never launch a presidential run. To name some names, Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Patty Murray. Old Republicans like Mitch McConnell tend to represent lower gdp states where a replacement won't have the resume to launch a presidential run.
Next the Obama effect. Obama was more popular than his policies, he was dragging them into power with his charisma. However at the state governor level he was toxic. Dem politicians without his charisma or ability to excite black voters had to run defending his policies. So purple states were not generating politicians that could make presidential runs.
There are other factors. The two Obama terms were expected to be followed by two Hilary terms, so anyone planning to run for president before 2024 just didn't get involved.
There's also a split between how left wing the press expects a D nominee to be and where the country is. Keep in mind that Obama campaigned in 2008 as a prays every day Christian who believed marriage was a union of one man and one woman.
DradisPing
5d ago
I think gambling preys on what makes people successful in more modern societies.
When people get into trouble it's often best to ignore negative setbacks, focus on the positive, knuckle down and work hard.
In more primitive societies people are at the mercy of the elements. If you're a peasant and there's a major crop failure right before winter, working hard won't make anything better. Starvation is coming and you just have to curl up and endure until spring.
Invasions are similar, hide until the problem goes away.
DradisPing
6d ago
You keep tossing out "the Hock" with no explanation like it's common cultural knowledge. Yet Google returns nothing.
What is it? Where are you getting it from?
DradisPing
6d ago
I think that there's an understated risk to reading a lot of fiction. Because it's all made up it can teach false lessons and prop up self serving narratives.
Non fiction has the advantage that you can learn true things from true events, even if the author is completely out to lunch.
DradisPing
6d ago
The idea of the show was "Sherlock Holmes as a doctor". So instead of Holmes and Watson you have House and Wilson solving medical mysteries. By the time it aired Wilson ended up as his old friend and House mostly works with his team of younger doctors.
House's personality is pretty close to what we got in shows like BBC's Sherlock. It's probably true to the Holmes novels, but I haven't read them.
DradisPing
7d ago
Video content is easier to monetize. Also software tends to be more of an evergreen model these days with constant changes. It's hard to keep a large book up to date, and hard to convince customers to buy something that will soon be out of date.
DradisPing
11d ago
I've had good results with CoQ10 at 200 mg, you should notice a difference if it works for you. Taurine pairs well with morning caffiene, it helps avoid jitters.
Other things are generally for specific issues you're having.
You might want to just look into a multivitamin with CoQ10 just to avoid having to take too many pills.
DradisPing
13d ago
The Twitter throttling that Musk has detailed since he took over was worse than most "conspiracy theories".
He had Twitter add the public view count so to provide future transparency about throttling.
DradisPing
13d ago
That's not true, peace offers have been well documented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
Russia wanted independence for Luhansk and Donetsk, recognition of Russian control of Crimea, and neutrality from Ukraine (eg no Nato, no arms along the border).
The US and UK convinced Zelenskyy that Nato weapons would allow him to win the war and take back Crimea, so here we are.
DradisPing
13d ago
He failed catastrophically at making money on the purchase.
He did, but there was a general tech stock collapse after he locked in the Twitter price. People who dislike Musk love to act like he's responsible for the crash. However, Spotify, Shopify, and many others has more spectacular falls in that same time period.
DradisPing
13d ago
but fundamentally I’ve never seen Ukraine as having a peace deal on the table which I don’t think Musks entirely gets.
Can you expand on what you mean by this?
DradisPing
14d ago
I think it's about food safety. Eating at a strange restaurant is inhernently a risk.
The US traditionally got around this by having diners for travellers serve a lot of mildly flavored food (eg maynaise & white bread) that won't hide the tast of spoiled meat. After food inspectors became common, spiced food became lower risk.
Asian tourists can safely eat at restaurants by the same nationality by checking for tells of high conscientiousness. Lazy restaurant owners who cut corners on food safety are generally lazy elsewhere. Looking to see if they follow all of the small rules their culture expects about decor is a strong signal. Also they can scan the other customers to see if they have appropriate standards.
DradisPing
16d ago
A quick follow up is where unions fail...
Unions have a negative effect when there's a fixed capital asset that the union can hold hostage that is unrelated to worker performance.
For instance LA port workers are crazy overpaid just because the port is so important for the US economy and there is no political will to fight the union or build a second big pacific port in Seattle.
Railways are always struggling because unions base their demands on the value of the entire rail system. The fix here is to split of the railway companies... pass a law that the company that owns the rail lines can't use them for shipping, they have to charge other companies for rail access who actually do the shipping.
DradisPing
16d ago
I'll be honest about my feelings towards unions: I don't get it at all, and I think I'm missing something.
There's a lot of history there and a lot of competing interests. It's probably worth reading this: http://www.paulgraham.com/unions.html
I think you'd be insane to not just fire anybody who joins a union on the spot. I don't get how places can "vote to unionize". Why does the employer not simply fire the people doing the organizing?
There are explicit laws against that. Unions in general have a lot of laws to protect them. Read up on Pinkerton strike breaking.
The owner of the "Giant Tiger" chain of stores in Canada likes to joke that "you don't get unions unless you deserve them". I don't think that's entirely true, but early unions were created in response to genuinely horrible treatment.
Are the people running factory machines inside of Ford and GM (or starbucks, or a hollywood writers room) really that highly skilled?
More or less yes. Starbucks isn't terribly high skilled, but a key part of the atmosphere is the preppy gayish vibes they curate in their employees. They needed to do a lot of careful hiring and firing to get that while staying within the bounds of the law.
Hollywood is actually a case of very functional unions. Each production is a new company, so everyone is fired afterwards. The union can't force anyone to employ low performing employees. So standards are enforced by constantly having to be rehired and treatment is enforced by the union. Writers getting royalties makes a lot of sense. Without them writers would save all of their best ideas for a time when they were co-producers and could share in the profits that way.
Skilled autoworkers do deserve decent pay and are difficult to replace. One issue is that the janitorial staff will often get better contract than they deserved, and the union representing them is stuck fighting for raises on top of an already overpriced salary.
Autoworkers and old industry are very interesting. Their golden age has passed, but a lot of unions still expect generous contracts.
Unions are often overly adversarial in the US. I have a controversial explanation for this -- the culture was strongly influenced by soviet spies who wanted to sabotage US industry. The KGB was certainly trying, and had a lot of connections on the left. I admit I can't prove they succeeded.
But countries closer to the iron curtain tended to have more reasonable unions. Germany has national unions based on job type instead of local unions for each company. That makes them more accepting of contracts that are in line with industry standards even if they don't offer big raises.
American unions will bankrupt a company then shrug and say they were just representing their workers, who are now all unemployed.
Unions in the US (and Canada) also like to start taking over management roles, which creates conflicts of interest. Controlling shifts and vacation dates. Sometimes people need a way to protect themselves from an abusive union rep. As far as I know no one has managed to organize a sub-union to curtail union abuses, but I think it could happen.
DradisPing
16d ago
Had I been asked at the time to predict how often QI is granted as a shield against §1983 civil lawsuits, I probably would have said around 80%. The real answer (thanks to Gdanning) is somewhere between 57% and 3.7%.
This is probably just due to how you're thinking about statistics. You're probably picturing a slightly different number, where QI blocks 80% of 1983 lawsuits you'd like to bring.
However most lawsuits won't proceed without a plan to get past QI, so a large number of potential claims have been excluded before they ever got to court.
DradisPing
20d ago
It doesn't look like anyone will answer so my best guess is Hock Mountain.
DradisPing
20d ago
I find it's a lot easier for me if I can see their name written beside their photo. Facebook was super helpful when people used it. I've had jobs where the HR solution has a photo directory.
DradisPing
21d ago
I don't really understand why we can't have retro style gameplay with high-res 2d graphics. Hades did it.
Hades is cell shaded 3D with a perspective to make it look 2D. It's more work to try to do that with the higher detail sprite look.
DradisPing
24d ago
That would be fantastic. I'm picturing SBF trying to buy designer stimulants from the neo nazi gang that sells meth.
DradisPing
26d ago
I don't think there's anything new here. I'm quite certain that there's a long history of courts ordering employers to inform their employees about their rights regarding things like unionization, racial discrimination, sexual harassment, etc.
DradisPing
30d ago
The biggest jackasses I've known were always people who's dads were cops.
The other students were afraid to punch them in the face in high school when they deserved it, and it's difficult to do that in a workplace as an adult.
DradisPing
1mo ago
It was trendy in some places to start earlier. I remember I first saw it when a friend was showing me clips from "The Hills" and none of the girls could furrow their brows when they were upset.
California has a "Jungle Primary" system for some positions where the top two primary vote receivers get on the ballot regardless of party. Dianne Feinstein (D) ran against Kevin de León (D) in 2018.
So a D vs D election is likely.
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