DradisPing
No bio...
User ID: 1102
DradisPing
3mo ago
Disney has a major problem where it is unwilling or unable to constrain budgets on productions.
I think midlevel execs get an ego boost from writing big cheques. It makes them feel important and powerful.
DradisPing
11mo ago
What are some good ideas, as an individual, for decreasing street crime in highly Democratic-leaning cities, other than just moving away?
Fundamentally the issues are caused by wealthy leftists not having to live the consequences of their ideology.
If you really want to improve things I'd suggest spending your weekends operating a shuttle service that takes the rougher individuals from downtown to and from the upperclass parks and neighbourhoods.
DradisPing
7mo ago
Mark Kern talked about this: https://www.geeksandgamers.com/video-game-producer-mark-kern-talks-sweet-baby-inc-and-esg-in-gaming/
Basically the issue is how games are funded. The studios get investors to front money for game development.
When companies like BlackRock were pushing ESG hard, ESG money was cheap money. Companies like EA saw the cheap money with the only condition being that they had to hire a bunch of DEI storyline consultants.
Now games are failing, but it's hard to fire the storyline consultants. They know how to work the system.
Also the various left wing activists they've hired over the years are trained to form a block and not back down, so it's a giant fight where just getting rid of the new hires isn't an option.
Of course you're right in that part of it is the devs. Trans women in particular tend to have issues with women's hips in games.
On a bit of a tangent, a surprising amount of game development is done in Canada as it's harder for devs to find other jobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_games_in_Canada#Studios
Assassin's Creed 4 has it's modern day sections set in Montreal. Mass Effect 3 has Shepard's trial take place in future Vancouver.
DradisPing
5mo ago
Technically the Archivist of the United States has the final, non-reviewable, say on validity of amendments, and she came forward last December and said it wasn't valid.
https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2025/nr25-004
This is more an attempt to acclimate the public to a future Archivist declaring it valid. It's interesting because the Archivist traditionally avoids doing anything controversial. There would be a whole lot of legitimacy questions if it happened.
DradisPing
1yr ago
In the past I've heard a lot of jokes about "The People's Republic of Pennsylvania". I don't know much about the state, but the Secretary of Agriculture has been making news lately.
The latest evolving story is about Rusty Herr and Ethan Wentworth who ran a bovine reproductive services company called "NoBull Sires, LLC".
The dispute arose back in 2010 because the Ag Department sent them a cease and desist plus a statement of fine on the grounds that using an ultrasound was practicing veterinary medicine without a license. The counter argument was that the Ag Department was out of scope of the law. Routine checks don't meet the requirement of "diagnosis and treatment" for practising veterinary medicine, even if they involve an ultrasound machine.
Notably the Ag Department seems to have never filed the paperwork with a court, which is a prerequisite for enforcement. So they were likely aware of the legal issues. In 2020 the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medicine Association sent a complaint to the Department of State.
On April 10-11, 2024 they were arrested and sent to jail for 30 days for "contempt of court". The problem is that the Ag Department seems to have issued the arrest warrant on their own. The case has never been in court. They have not been before a judge.
So they are both in jail serving a 30 day sentence that didn't involve a judge and they haven't been allowed to see a judge.
There is a culture war angle here. The press seems to be reluctant to get involved for a few reasons. These days they like to defer to the bureaucracy, particularly when the Governor is from the right party. Plus Pennsylvania is in play for 2024 so they are reluctant to kick up a fuss that could help Trump.
I'm only finding coverage in the farming press right now and they don't really dive into the legal issues.
DradisPing
6mo ago
One issue is that the US is unusually strict about recording babies who took one breath as live births. Other countries are much less strict and record babies that died a few ours after birth as stillborn. Or even a few days.
DradisPing
11mo ago
No, the other special prosecutors were all Senate confirmed federal prosecutors assigned a new duty as special prosecutor. Mueller was a former federal prosecutor, so some could have argued he wasn't currently qualified, but the Senate would have re-confirmed him if needed so there wasn't really any point in pushing the issue.
Jack Smith was a state prosecutor who was famous for going after a governor in a prosecution the SCOTUS eventually overturned 9-0. Then he went to the ICC where he used his novel prosecution skills against war criminals.
Basically if the Jack Smith appointment stands then a future Republican AG is free to give any mad dog red state lawyer full federal prosecutor powers with no confirmation, oversight, or budget control.
DradisPing
3mo ago
It's actually been going the other way as there are special benefits to identifying as non-white these days. Back when there were restrictions on non-white immigration Indians fought to be classified as white and won. Similarly hispanics includes a lot of people with 80%+ European ancestry. A nearly 100% European ancestry kid who doesn't speak Spanish gets to identify as hispanic for college applications because his grandparents were born in Latin America.
Steve Sailer has a bunch of articles on "the flight from white" that are worth reading.
One of the interesting battles within the Democratic Party has been about how Jewish activists see themselves as non-white, but a lot of the activist base sees them as white.
DradisPing
2mo ago
Any real attempt to build a semi-permanent Mars base would have larger political, legal, and financial problems. You can't throw in the towel in the face of a much smaller problem and expect to make it.
DradisPing
1yr ago
The Muslim Ban was rejected by courts twice, and only a watered down version passed on the third attempt.
I think you're missing key info on the legal fight here. You're presuming the courts are some neutral arbiter here, but there was major forum shopping. All three versions were before the same judge in Hawaii who issued injunctions blocking all three. The judge was a personal friend of Obama an Obama flew out and had lunch with him after he was assigned the case. The 9th wasn't going to overturn so it was blocked until it got to the SCOTUS.
Immigration hawks noticed this and decided that they could forum shop too. So the lawsuits against Biden's policies were all filed in Red friendly districts.
Which goes back to a key point of the bill you left out. All lawsuits would need to be filed in the notoriously politically corrupt DC courts. Future Republican Presidents would likely be blocked from ever using the Border Emergency Authority. All new asylum requirements would be watered down as too strict.
DradisPing
10mo ago
When I hear that something like half of Trump supporters claim to literally believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, yet I also see that basically none of them used guns to do anything about it, it gives me some doubt about this whole "bulwark against government tyranny" train of thought
Most people in the US have a vision to Tyranny built around English aristocrats oppressing them with uniformed troops.
The reality is any tyrannical group coming into power is going to be too weak at first to use the police to oppress their enemies. Instead there's a gang of government supporters who are allowed to commit crimes against the disfavoured groups without the police intervening. Often they are masked, but not always.
This is a very loose category that includes everyone from the KKK to Hitler's brownshirts to Antifa. Maduro has 'colectivos'. They are just everywhere.
The second amendment is very effective against this loose category. Without it inner city crime gangs would have been driving out the the suburbs and rural areas to rob and kill.
Things like the 2020 election are about allegations of widespread corruption. Guns aren't helpful there. They need to tighten laws and gather evidence.
DradisPing
1mo ago
The "absence of statutory restriction" might also involve federal laws, since as far as I know state and federal have the same voter registration.
DradisPing
5mo ago
Listing cartels as terrorist organizations is actually a big deal. It enables the government to aggressively track money.
It's widely suspected that payments from the cartels to Chinese chemical companies are being laundered through Canadian real estate.
DradisPing
7mo ago
A BA was originally about helping wealthy and intelligent people to lead a more enriched life.
The problem is that schools took over credentialization without adjusting their programs.
Right now no one has an interest in explaining to students which subjects are rich kid majors.
I think the real solution is to involve actuaries in the federal student loans program. Analyse data and warn kids that their program is unlikely to ever pay off their student loans.
DradisPing
10mo ago
Nerd wrangling is a specific skill. There are common patterns for failure for large engineering teams. Being able to recognize these and correct them is important.
Human behaviour inevitably means that organizations will be run by ambitions and internal alliances unless something stops it. Managers want to build their resumes by running ambitious projects. They often like or dislike ideas based on how much they like the individual who brought it up.
A tech leader needs to be able to bust things up a bit when they aren't functioning. That's why Musk is often described as being unstable and disruptive by existing management in the company. It's also why he has such a strong history of success at coming in as a new CEO.
Musk isn't deeply involved in developing tech, but when he gets a message from an employee about a problem and a response from the higher ups, he can tell if the higher ups are bullshitting him.
For that he does need significant tech skills, but doesn't need to be a specialist in any of the products.
Altman seems similar to me.
As for the tweet, general political commentary on twitter doesn't usually involve deep thoughts. He's stating a clear rebuttal that midwit followers can use in political discussions in their daily lives. The fact that a statement from the VP running for President can be rebutted with econ 101 says more about the state of the country than Musk.
DradisPing
7mo ago
The problem with the values side is the values aren't really verifiable. The homeland of a people side feels under threat in large part because many of the people coming in aren't expected to believe in meritocracy, free speech, or any of that.
Take the example of Judge Chutkan. Her parents left Jamaica and brought her to the US because they were too hardline communist for the communists of Jamaica.
The Dems appointed her to be a DC judge precisely because she has weak cultural ties to the US and can't be shamed into following traditional American legal norms. Appeals to democratic traditions and rights just fall flat on her, she just hates her political enemies.
Republican voters see her in charge of the DC Trump trial and loose all faith in values based immigration.
Oh and it's a big lie that H1-Bs go to "highly educated foreign professionals". Sure decent chunk do. But they are randomly selected from the pool of applicants that have the correct paperwork, so there are significant abuses.
For instance here are H1Bs granted to a hog farming company: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=murphy-brown+llc&job=&city=&year= Median Salary is $40768.
For H1Bs you need to match the prevailing local wage, so a lot of shops set up in a poor city, and pay their employees well below the normal national wages.
https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=wipro+limited&job=&city=&year=all+years
Sort by salary low to high.
As a fix for H1Bs I've long argued that they should award them based on base salary instead of the current random. It'd fix problems.
DradisPing
7mo ago
First, why does it seem that the trolling and triggering in gender discourse is so asymmetric?
You have to understand the power asymmetry. The Women's side of the gender discourse is run by Women's Studies department with tenured professors. Low grade trolling is a bit beneath them. They don't want to trigger people like Groypers. They dislike being reminded of the continued existence of Fuentes and Tate.
Also trolling like that is an aggressive guy thing. The equivalent is probably that ex-teacher on Tik Tok who talks about politics in a pre school teacher voice like her viewers are small children.
DradisPing
8mo ago
My suspicion is that Harris did work ad McDs, but it was in high school in Montreal. Her campaign doesn't really want to draw attention to her childhood outside the US, so they are being evasive.
DradisPing
1mo ago
I'd expect that it's like a conservation easement. The rights are transferred to the HOA before the first sale, so you never have the full title to the land.
DradisPing
1mo ago
Antibiotics are interesting because bacteria do develop resistance to them, however that resistance fades over time.
So it's possible that penicillin was discovered multiple times but abandoned when it mysteriously stopped working.
DradisPing
3mo ago
There's a theory that it's instinctive to try to stop parents from having sex and having another child too soon that would compete for resources.
DradisPing
5mo ago
Firstly, those examples which I just listed were examples in which the forces of capital were neutral (CFCs, gay rights)
For an even more cynical interpretation I'd like to point out that CFC ozone damage was first discovered in a research paper in 1974. The CFC patent expired in 1978. Things didn't get rolling on a CFC ban until the 80s.
Sure these things take time, but I think the forces of capital saw the introduction of new patentable refrigerants as an opportunity.
DradisPing
5mo ago
But the terrorist designation activates specific regulations in the financial system. Sure, they could pass new laws and regulations to do the same thing. But this does have an impact on it's own.
DradisPing
7mo ago
I think that there is a big problem with post-grad programs at low ranked schools. The school is basically scamming students who think an MA/PhD from that school will open up academic career possibilities.
Jewish students at UCLA had to go to court because protesters were blocking Jews from entering the campus and UCLA argued it had no responsibility to stop them from doing so.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/14/us/ucla-campus-protests-court-ruling/index.html
There has been a lot of targeting of Jews for being Jewish by protesters over the last few years.
More options
Context Copy link