JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
3hr ago
Didn't have time to do proper service to those books I read yet (surprisingly, the list is longer than I remembered), I decided in the meantime to do the list of fails - those books where I started reading, but got stuck and put them aside, either for a while or forever.
The Annihilation Score (Charles Stross, Laundry Files) - I used to enjoy Laundry Files series, but the quality has gone downhill, and by this one it became unbearable. Also the author himself is a completely un-sympathetic (to me) character, which I would be inclined to overlook if the work were good, but it isn't. To the discard pile it goes.
Use of weapons (Ian Banks) - I enjoyed Player of Games, but this one just didn't work for me. I feel nothing for it and it felt like wasting time. Undecided whether I want to continue with Banks in general (recommendations welcome) but likely done with this one.
Mercy of Gods (James SA Corey, of The Expanse fame). Actually an opposite reason - it's pretty good as a book, but way too dark for me right now. With all that's going on around me, I feel like I just can't stomach that much of physical and psychological torture, death and suffering. I am only a weak man. Maybe I'll return to it in happier times.
Unbearable lightness of being (Kundera, obviously) - this one is very famous and I totally don't get it. It's not bad, just, you know, meh, and I expected more. I set it aside and will return to it, probably, when I'm in more suitable mood for it or maybe just older.
A Tale of Two Cities (you know this one) - ever more famous and highly praised book than the former, true classic, same symptoms. I mean, I am not saying it out of contrarianism, I even actually like his style and wordsmithing abilities, but with some books (with much less technically capable writers too) it makes me care what happens and why, and this, for one reason or another, does not.
Burmese days (Orwell) - Orwell is most famous for the book everybody heard of, but he's a genuinely good writer overall (IMHO) and I enjoy his writing. But this one also was a bit too hopeless for me - I understand why one could write a book about "everything is shit and is going to shit" (especially when everybody else pretends it's actually going peachy) but reading it when everything had gone to shit, and goes to shit even deeper now, is taxing. I will likely return to it next year.
Barbarians at the Gate (Bryan Burrough and John Helyar) A very, very detailed book about how the big business is done, on the example of RJR Nabisco. Very interesting, but the amount of details is a bit overwhelming, so I had to take a break. Will likely finish it sometime next year.
JarJarJedi
6hr ago
I wasn't getting Anna Karenina for a long time, probably until about 40s too. Though I was a bit hampered by the fact that it had been taught in Soviet school, and that can give a bad taste to anything. Tolstoy himself was in his 40s when writing it, so that also may be a factor.
JarJarJedi
6hr ago
If you're making any money, you're doing it wrong.
Tolstoy was born into a very aristocratic old money family. I am not sure what'd be the US equivalent of this, maybe like Kennedy? And he didn't like how things were going, so obviously the opposite of what he saw is correct - if my family has tons of money and relies on other's work to provide for us, the right thing is to have no surplus and dig the dirt with your hands and mow with the sickle.
JarJarJedi
8hr ago
Hard to say without context what it actually means. Out-of-context random images can be very misleading. No idea what's happening here.
JarJarJedi
12hr ago
Well, what would you expect - a cage match to first blood? Most people, if they find themselves in a common social situation with somebody whose views you may not respect, would politely smile and behave, that's the norm of the society. You could avoid going to places where you could encounter people like Chomsky (or Bannon) but if you are politically and socially active, you may end up in the same room with them and maybe even discover you have friends in common. What then?
JarJarJedi
3d ago
The reason states don't board planes in mid-air is because it's dangerous and murder / reckless endangerment is bad.
Lukashenko essentially managed to pull this off (well, not exactly this but something very close to it): https://apnews.com/article/journalist-belarus-dissident-sentenced-4c4c0c21838f79ab98b44b97366af379 Of course, it works only once, then the planes would just route around your country, and pulling this off outside of your borders is practically impossible.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
I would like to know what makes this different than piracy, if anything.
It's a state action. Piracy is not. In fact, the main differences between a privateer and a pirate is a state authorization. The state itself, obviously, has its own authorization, and thus can not be a pirate. If you are going to engage in the argument "this can looks like a thing that is described by a word that we think is bad", I recommend https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncentral-fallacy-the-worst-argument-in-the-world
Countries commit hostile acts against each other all the time. Sanctions, blockades, embargoes, seizures, tariffs, whatever. Of course, if state A attacks state B's ships, state B could also do something else to state A. Or ask another state C to help them. Unfortunately for Venezuela, Russia is not willing to defend them, and Guyana also not a huge factor, especially as the ship doesn't even belong to them.
Economic sanctions usually mean, "I won't do business with you," can a sanction mean, "I won't let you do business with someone else, and if you do I'll seize your vessel in your waters?"
Yes, of course. That's called an embargo, or a blockade.
At what point is a sanction a war with fancier language?
At the point the other side fights back.
Will the US have boots on the ground in Venezuela in a year?
Maybe some, but not likely many. Drug trade, unlike fundamentalist islam, is a business. Having war with a strongest army in the world, supported by the biggest economy in the world, is a bad business. So there's nobody in Venezuela that could do the same things that happened in Iraq. Venezuela as a country won't be able to resist US military - if the order is given - more than a couple of days, and it only will take this long because going fast would lead to casualties - not because of enemy action per se but because shit always happens, especially when boomy things are involved. More likely scenario is Maduro evacuates to Russia and then... who knows what happens. Certainly making it less of a shithole would be a titanic task, and I am not sure Trump is either capable or interested in that. Or maybe Maduro gets over himself, kowtows to Trump and Trump declares yet another Yuge Victory. What happens to the drug trade? They will adapt and find other ways to US market, as they always do.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
I don't see the point in this rule-lawyering. They are sovereign countries. They want to take Russia's stuff because Russia is behaving badly and Russia already took their stuff. As sovereigns, they can. Of course, other sovereigns may dislike that and this may cause problems - like them in turn taking European stuff, or behaving toward Europeans in a hostile way - but Russia is already doing all of that, and nobody else is seriously threatening that on behalf of Russia. So while it is in a good taste to sign proper papers in proper places before taking stuff (to limit agent abuse, corruption, etc.) I don't see where there's an actual problem with that.
JarJarJedi
5d ago
I'm sorry but "if you didn't personally verify the wiring layout of your phone therefore all your concerns about phone software are invalid" doesn't sound like an expert-level argument. I know "expert" doesn't mean what it used to mean anymore, but this approach is ridiculous whether the person advancing it considers himself an "expert" or not.
JarJarJedi
5d ago
I think the discussion is descending into ridiculousness at this point. No, I don't know that the whole cell phone thing is not just one giant CIA mind control operation aimed at stealing my precious bodily fluids, and I don't care about it. So I don't think there's a point to continue here.
JarJarJedi
5d ago
This is a very convincing argument about physical microphone switch being completely impossible. As somebody who never designed a phone, I have to completely defer to your expertise. Except for one small thing: phones with physical microphone switches actually exist. Example: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ Must be using some kind of unholy black magic, because is also costs less than many of those phones where there's absolutely no way to do it, both physically and legally. As people should not associate with unholy black magic, I guess we'd have to agree this is just not possible.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Best quote in the show.
Agreed, and I think that whole arc was the peak of the show, and explains why DS9 is so great - it deals with real meaty hairy questions, that leave you thinking about them for a long time after, and it does not shy away from the sucky parts. And I think Roddenberry would probably not let this happen - from what I saw in his work, he'd find some creative way out of this Kobayashi Maru, and all others, to let the good guys win and remain the good guys.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
In my opinion, DS9 is the best Star Trek, and it's not even close. I rewatch it regularly, and it always delivers.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
you don't trust the microphone notification because you're not able to look at your notification bar
No, I don't trust the notification because I don't see any mechanism that prevents microphone from working while not displaying the notification, those are completely different systems, and the only thing linking them is software. Which is extremely fallible. If I break the electric circuit, I'd trust the laws of physics to prevent the microphone from working.
This claim requires that Facebook et al have a backdoor that's never been detected in all these years.
Doesn't have to be Facebook, could be google feeding some data into one of a myriad of data aggregators, and ad platforms just using the end result of that.
a switch which may not do anything
That's become known pretty quickly I imagine, it's not hard to open it and verify, I opened my phones several times despite being complete ignoramus in electronics. And it's easy to prove too, so for a phone manufacturer going through all the expense of making a fake switch would be pointless, especially given as phone manufacturers aren't those who profit from ads. OTOH, phone manufacturers do not control the software, and making fallible software is cheaper than making secure one.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Why a physical switch isn't possible? Looks like very basic thing, just interrupt the circuit.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
Nobody checks any notifications bars when your phone is in your pocket or sitting on your table. A tiny green dot is hard to miss. Also, I am not entirely convinced there's no way to turn on the microphone (hardware) without showing the green dot (software). It's be very easy to lay all these doubt to rest - make a hardware microphone mute switch, that physically (electrically) disconnects the microphone hardware. I'd trust that. Nobody does it though.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
Does this difference actually matter? 99.99% of users will click "allow" on any permission a "trusted" app (like facebook or browser) would ask them for, and would never realize any of those deep technical aspects.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
I've had a bunch of "weird" occurrences like discussing some thing with my wife that we haven't ever mentioned before and suddenly we start getting ads about this exactly subject, but I can't call it a conclusive evidence, as it could be either of us looked up something related before or during talking about it and just forgot about it. I'm pretty sure it's not too hard to make a clean experiment if one wanted to, but I am too lazy to do anything like that.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
Should I mentally prepare for president Newsom to bomb shipwrecked sailors, lead trade wars, deport illegals to foreign megaprisons, and accept fantasy prizes from corrupt sports officials
Absolutely. In fact, past Democratic presidents already bombed weddings, initiated many trade and kinetic wars, deported illegals and accepted various funky prizes. There's absolutely zero reason to assume Newsom - which has already demonstrated he is at the very best no better than an average politician - wouldn't do it, if only it would seem necessary to him. And I am sure, that when it happens, you will find for yourself and excellent explanation why this time it's completely different.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
from a card issuer's perspective, you don't want to be making money off your problem customers
If you are Home Depot, sure, that's not why you are issuing a card. If you are a fintech startup staffed by people who did exploitative extraction of financial advantages their whole career, why wouldn't you want it. Ideal Home Depot customer and ideal trashy gambling card customer are not the same person.
and then eventually either consolidate or default out of your portfolio.
Yes, the trick here is to extract more value than the difference between his debt ab initio and his debt sold to collectors is. However, I'm sure they think they can do it. And given as, again, the whole industry catering to bad-credit people exists, it's not impossible. It's not a nice business, for sure, but life finds a way.
Do you want to get a banking license? Because, if you don't want to partner with an existing bank, you need a banking license, and to get that you essentially need to buy a bank.
I haven't worked in fintech, so I don't know how, but this problem is for sure solvable - there are tons of credit cards around, and also tons of gambling outlets, including online. Somehow they find a way. You don't need all the bank license holders, you just need one.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
which is like $800 for the American Express card now
Amex gold is $325, Amex Platinum is $825. There are way more expensive ones. I regularly get mailers where they confuse me with somebody who would pay such amount of money for a card. And tbh, if I were twice as rich and led a completely different lifestyle, this kind of annual fees make sense - the value of the benefits, if bought at retail, and if I would actually use them, usually several times over the annual fee. It's just I wouldn't even need it. Though I do have a couple of $95 cards, because I do get over $100 value per year out of them. But this is completely different model - that's just prepaying stuff in bulk.
but having that because your business is lending to them is, as you say, less valuable.
Well, it's a different business, of course, but there is a whole industry built on exploiting people with bad habits and bad credit. Payday loans, subprime loans, title loans, all that crap. This is just the same business, but 2.0 with cellphones and algorithms.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
The part you are missing here is that interchange fees is not the only money maker. At least equally important, maybe more important, money are in people that over-consume credit, and pay absolutely humongous credit rates. You need to lure in those people, and abuse them to the max. Adding gambling addiction component fits very well - this is exactly the sort of people that tend to overconsume their credit in the hope of one day winning big. And unlike traditional gambling industry, which is by now pretty heavily regulated, you can put in whatever technology with whatever winning chances and algorithms optimized for maximum addictiveness, at least until the regulators catch up. That's the whole point - it's not targeted for regular "get my 2% and pay off the card each month" consumers. It's exploitative from the ground up.
because launching a credit card is an extraordinarily expensive endeavor.
That part I am not sure I understand. I mean, marketing expenses, sure. But otherwise, it's just bits in some config files somewhere in the existing systems. Why is it expensive? It's a mass industry by now, everybody has their own CC brand.
"yeah we have a credit card which is exclusively designed for gambling addicts, would you please underwrite us?"
Sure, a traditional bank probably won't want to be associated with a gambling business. But somebody runs all those gambling businesses, and they have money too. A lot of money, probably, so convincing them to invest into yet another way to exploit gamblers wouldn't be impossible.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
Combining shopping addiction with gambling addiction? That's not dumb. They don't need many people to sign up, marginal costs are near zero, and technically it's not even a casino. Or at least that's what their lawyers told them to tell the regulators. Whether or not regulators would believe that BS is entirely different business, but until they wake up, there could be some money to be made.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
Created by problem-solvers with expertise in derivative pricing, high frequency trading, and software engineering from Morgan Stanley, Hudson River Trading, Google, and Meta
If there is any group of people that I want to trust with my money and that I would absolutely believe do not want to exploit my weaknesses for financial gain, it's a bunch of people from HFT, derivative trading and Google/Meta.
First time I read Hyperion the sequels felt like a letdown, so I set them aside. Second time I read through them, it was all awesome. I plan to re-read the whole thing again sometime in the future.
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