JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
12d ago
For something like the border it's less worrying for me, because I know they have all the data on me, and they are legally bound to let me in. They can give me a lot of shit and marinate me for a bit there (for procedure or just for the heck of it, who knows) but at the end it'll be fine. I once got into the US from Canada with a wrong ID (I think it was expired or something, and I didn't realize that) and they were very upset at the document being invalid, and I had to go sit for an hour in a room with other suspects, but then they finally let me in, after admonishing me about the necessity to keep valid documents and follow proper procedures.
than to have housekeeping break in and steal your passport).
I stay mostly in cheap hotels (not always, but very frequently, though I avoid outright dumps, but a step higher is often ok for me) and over by now decades of travel I can't remember a single thing that was stolen from me in a hotel. Of course, not that I have a lot of stuff worth stealing, except maybe computer tech. Maybe I just got lucky, but I am not overly concerned about hotel housekeeping stealing my ID - if the cartels need my ID so much, they'd just bribe a receptionist and he'll copy it for them and I'd suspect nothing. But they probably already have all my data anyway from the last Experian hack or a dozen of similar ones that followed.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
TBH my primary worry is me. I've never been mugged or pickpocketed, I just added it for completeness sake. But I have lost a lot of things over the years. If I get to thinking deeply about something or reading something interesting, I could get quite absent-minded sometimes. Usually the victims are hats, umbrellas, sunglasses, chargers, water bottles and such small items, but one day I could get especially unlucky.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
They stopped copying IDs years ago in most hotels. Of course they'd have a record of Mr. JJJ in their database, the problem is proving that guy and me are the same person. CCTV would help but I am not sure whether an underpaid receptionist would have access to such things, especially days back. I guess if I am insistent enough they could at least get someone who does on the phone, if only to get rid of me.
I heard it worked in DC, and as I understand it also quelled LA riots pretty quickly (though we always have the possibility they'd have ended the same without the Guard deployment). In general, such things serve multiple functions: showing the ne'er-do-wells that the Law is serious now and the free ride is at least temporarily over, which makes the opportunists among them to either lay low or move on to other places/things, showing the local police that if they aren't doing their jobs, their jobs will be done for them, which makes the city admin more open to the idea to actually instruct the police to do their job, showing the random normies things are happening in the most perceivable and obvious way - you literally see those guys on the street. And the thugs see them too, so they aren't likely to rob a grocery store right in front of them. Of course, the idea is that once the quiet is established, the local police will take over in maintaining this quiet - which if the local police is not willing to (or the local government does not intend to let them) makes it only a temporary measure. But the local politicians do not want to establish a pattern "with Trump - quiet, without Trump - mayhem" in the minds of their electorate, so they would be at least somewhat incentivized for maintain the quiet, once established, for a while.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
I've been doing some traveling lately, I started wondering. What happens if I lose my wallet (my ID, all credit cards, etc.) and my phone, or get mugged or such? How can I establish my identity? Say, my hotel key was in the wallet - would I be locked out of the hotel? How would they know I am me if I show up and ask for a replacement key? I mean, they can send a security guy with me to the room - and then what? All the stuff in my suitcase are very generic guy's clothes that could be anybody's. I probably don't even remember which exactly t-shirts and jeans I packed. They don't have labels or anything that points to me. How would they know? How would I get home, for that matter - I can't fly without an ID, and I can't get a new ID until I am in the same state at least - if I am not living in this state, they can't issue me a new ID.
I could go to the police maybe - though I wouldn't even know where "the police" is in a random city. But even assuming I just get lucky and encounter a traffic cop or something, and they explain me where the closest police station is - do I walk there then? And when there - how would they know I am me? Do they have access to other state's databases? Since I am a naturalized citizen, DHS for sure has a lot of my photos and fingerprints, but can any police precinct access it just on a word of a random dude? And after that - even if they do believe me, they can't issue me a new ID, right? So how do I still get home (or even to the airport, for that matter)?
Also, is there a good strategy to prepare for such eventuality? I can't just ask DMV for a secondary ID that I would keep in my suitcase in the hotel, for example, can I? I could probably take my passport, but the chance I lose it actually makes it more dangerous, and recovering the passport is probably even more annoying. Does a form of secondary ID that is not as costly to lose exist?
JarJarJedi
13d ago
No you are not. You can just say "God does things that I do not understand, and I accept it because I do not pretend to fully understand God". If anything, I can't understand how you can fully accept divine providence without being ready to admit that - I mean, this would literally require a God-sized ego otherwise. At least for a Christian I think, it is on the list as hyperēphania, or in simpler words, pride.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
A wacko. You call this type of position/argument "a wacko".
JarJarJedi
13d ago
I do such coding for living for many years now. My experience is in no way exclusive, people use a lot of tools, but what I have been using is Java/Scala/Python, with a little bit of C/C++, a good IDE (JetBrains is pretty good at that, though a lot of people I know also use VS Code) and a lot of head-scratching. All the rest is secondary. So far my conviction is if your main tool is LLM then either a) it's not "serious" coding - and by this I mean no disrespect, a lot of coding needs are quite well covered by trivial JS/Python boilerplate, and there's nothing wrong with that, just as a lot of medical needs are covered by "take this Tylenol and call me if it doesn't resolve itself by the end of the week", but we don't think that's all of medicine, do we? - or, more dangerous, b) you are dangerously deluded as to what coding tasks LLMs are appropriate to. In the latter case, may God have mercy on your soul, because you will find out soon.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
I don't think Trump cares too much how much they squeal. He does want to have a "peace achieved" badge on his belt, but he is not overly concerned whether or not some particular EU squealers are happy with it, as long as he is happy with it. The problem with this is you can't really have peace without Putin actually giving the peace, and the latter has zero interest in it so far, unless he achieves either swallowing Ukraine fully or a reasonable approximation of it that can be sold as such.
JarJarJedi
14d ago
"Noisy neighbor problem" is a very real thing in the clouds.
JarJarJedi
15d ago
And Chinese botmasters could just buy VMs at any non-Chinese cloud provider. Which they probably already do.
JarJarJedi
15d ago
On the other hand, if it's a misbehaving web crawler, it's a weirdly terrible one that's spending a lot of effort looking somewhat like a DDOS.
AI crawlers tend to do that. There are a number of complaints from smaller sites that are getting smothered by badly written crawlers collecting data for AI training.
Either that or we've gotten incredibly popular in China over the last week.
Which strongly points to the above.
JarJarJedi
17d ago
The thing is, my workouts if anything became less intense than I did for the last few years - more emphasis on the resistance training than cardio than before - not related to the weight loss effort, just a coincidence that I switched a month or so prior. But I tried to do diets before (keto, zone, etc.) and it never worked. I mean, if worked for a short while but I was miserable and couldn't sustain it. This regime I think I could sustain pretty much indefinitely if I needed to - though I probably will try to relax some of the limitations if I reach my weight target.
I know 5.7 Hb1Ac is not too bad, but it had been creeping up for a while (and other issues been popping out too) and given my genetics, I'd rather not play with fire here.
JarJarJedi
17d ago
For me, the important part wasn't the late breakfast - I did it all the time anyway - but the absence of late dinners and snacking. Looks like I got some substantial calories there without even realizing it. I am still not sure whether it's the timing aspect or the fact that snacking had been substantially reduced - because I now rarely feel hungry enough mid-day to snack. But it seems to be efficient and does not require constant attention and exercise of willpower like specialized diets and calorie counting I did before required - which I think was the main reason why I could never maintain them, attention is a limited resource, and I have a lot of better things to spend it on. With this, it's simple - if it's in the timeframe and I am hungry, I eat. If it's not, I don't. I don't bother with calorie counting or anything, and the foods that are in exclusion list just aren't in the house in most parts. If I go out occasionally, I may be tempted to eat something "bad", but that so far doesn't seem to happen frequently enough to matter.
JarJarJedi
18d ago
I thought about doing 8/16 IF but that's quite hard to fit in my schedule. Looks like 10/14 is working OK for me so far, and it fits well, but if it becomes not enough I could try to go to 8/16.
JarJarJedi
18d ago
Yes, Mr. Ivanov, Alexander Ivanovich, Alexander, Alex, Sasha, Sanya, Shura, Shurik, Ivanych, etc. are all the same person, depending on context. And using the wrong one in a wrong context may be a major social faux pas too. Unless you grew up with it, it can be a bit tricky to guess, especially that some diminutives have very little obvious connection to the full name, and some of them are also non-unique. You just have to know it.
JarJarJedi
18d ago
Something like:
V9135XA: Hit or struck by a falling object due to an accident in a canoe or kayak
I'm sure is a lot of fun to marvel at, but working with this system practically might be challenging... "So you say you were struck in the head by a falling object, my first medical question would be - were you per chance in a kayak at the time? How about a canoe?"
JarJarJedi
18d ago
The reverse side should have the picture of the autopen.
JarJarJedi
18d ago
In July, I did my routine vitals checkup, and got some bad news. High glucose levels (110), high HA1C (5.7), abnormal lipids and liver function tests. Of these, the glucose part has been most worrying, since I have genetic predisposition to diabetes duer to family history, and that's not fun. I talked to the doctor and he said basically you can lose weight or we can give you a bunch of pills, your choice. So, I decided to take some measures to reduce my weight and sugar intake and see how much it can more the needle. What I have done:
- I've been eating pretty cleanly already, but I excluded all added sugar products pretty much completely
- I stopped all snacking, unless it's nuts, cheese or beef jerky, and only do those 1-2 times a day in small quantities
- Stopped all sweets altogether (with rare occasional exceptions like birthday, etc.) including no sugary fruit
- Stopped all high-carb foods - no bread, pasta, etc.
- No alcohol (again, with rare exceptions like birthday or social occasion with friends - which came out no more than once a month)
- Made an IF routine where I only eat anything between 10am and 8pm, outside of it I only drink water or tea
- Exercise routine - at least 3 gym days (15 mins cardio, then 45 mins to an hour resistance training) plus 1hr martial arts 2 times a week
- In addition to that, walk with the dog 45-1hr daily
This wasn't very hard to maintain - I am missing the sweets a bit, but otherwise I just needed to be a little more organized and regular with what I was already doing. Just required to keep in mind and reminding myself that I need to keep to the routine. It does include eating less varied diet than I used to and forgo some culinary pleasures, but it doesn't become intolerable (fortunately, my wife is a good cook and is very supportive).
This week, after 3 months of this routine, I got the new tests. The glucose is back into acceptable range, HA1C is 5.4 - well within normal range, liver function normal, lipids are still abnormal but much better than before. And I lost 20 pounds. I am happy with the result and plan to continue with the same regimen with another 3 months, and get my weight close to my ideal range (which requires losing another 10-15 pounds). After which I plan to slowly relax the routine and re-introduce some stuff like occasional bread or fruit and see if I can maintain the lower weight while allowing some more tricky items in - my wife is also a good baker, so some temptations are definitely there. So far I'm optimistic about this.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
There's a bunch of nonsense right here.
"The cult of action for action's sake,"
Of course, our guys only topple statues, set fire to district courts, attack the police, smash windows of the stores, burn down gas stations and loot supermarkets only after deep intellectual reflection. While their fascist goons are taking actions just out of base animalistic instincts, because they are uncapable of deep thought - otherwise they'd already be agreeing with us, as any reasonable person who is not a fascist does.
How can one take something like this seriously as a "definition" of anything? Of course exposing the vacuous nature of such intellectual pretense can be called "anti-intellectualism", but this is bullshit - these people have no right to usurp the mantle of "intellect" and use it to cover their vapid nonsense.
"Appeal to a frustrated middle class,"
So you're saying, taking into consideration the interests of a group of voters who are about 3/4 of the voters, is something that "fascists" do? Congratulations, every single politician is a fascist now. This can't be serious, of course every political movement in a democratic country would consider interests of the middle class, and in every welfare state a lot of middle class is frustrated because they bear the bulk of the burden of maintaining the welfare state, while not deriving a lot of benefit from it. The only movements that would not are the ones like communists which would rather see the democratic regime overthrown and the dictatorship of the proletariat installed - there would be no stinking "middle class" there!
Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual
This is literally THE leftist slogan. "People united" and so on. When I was in Soviet school (long time ago), I had to memorize a ton of poems about how an individual is nothing and the collective is everything. And it's the opponents of MAGA that had been consistently trying to suppress individualism and unapproved viewpoints for decades now.
Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak."
This can be applied to any anti-establishment movement. People say the elites oppress them? "too strong!" People say the elites are morally corrupt and decadent? "too weak!" Here, every movement attacking the establishment - even obviously oppressive, corrupt and decadent one - is now "fascist". That's not a definition, that's a smear.
"Disagreement is treason"
This is especially poignant now, when the Left actually just murdered a person whose only life's business was publicly disagreeing with them, and massively agreed this is a good thing to do and needs to be done more. I mean, without that I could spend some time on explaining how the left had been repressing dissent for the last decade, but I no longer need to. They are literally, as a movement, enthusiastic about murdering people for disagreement.
"Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat.
That's another nonsense - who defines what's "hyping up"? You take your enemies actions seriously? You are "obsessed" and therefore a fascist. You are passionate about human rights and injustice? "Obsessed" again. This is literally how late Soviets suppressed the dissidents - they just declared them mentally ill, because obviously only a mentally ill person can be obsessed with proving USSR is an oppressive dictatorship with no freedoms or human rights.
This of course is especially great when we know now that there are organized networks and institutions working to achieve exactly the goals the "conspiracy theorists" said they want to achieve - a fundamental transformation of Western society and imbuing it with values radically different from the ones it used to have. If you notice any of that, you are obviously a fascist.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
I addressed this in another comment - because when the system had been initially created, IRS wasn't supposed to have most of the information - at least not routinely, they could get a court order or such if they have reasonable suspicion you're cheating, but otherwise they wouldn't have the full picture. Since then, a lot changed, and now pretty much everything is reported to the IRS. But the system is still arranged as if IRS doesn't have the full picture, even though it does, and since now there are massive companies built essentially on tracking what IRS has and re-implementing it in a user-friendly way - and the IRS itself does not implement any user-facing interface to it - we have barriers to change. IRS would have to budget some investment (not large on the scale of federal government, but not insignificant in absolute numbers, probably tens of millions of dollars at least, maybe more) to implement a user-facing system that could be efficiently used by taxpayers, and the incumbents would lobby very hard against it, claiming this already exists as a private solution (which is true) and the feds squeezing out private business is unacceptable (which is usually true in general, but in this particular case is not, but they can make it look true).
JarJarJedi
20d ago
I don't know how it is in Sweden, but in the US I am not a big entrepreneur but I have to take into account, beyond my salary:
- Freelancing income - plus expenses, plus SEP IRA linked to that income
- Income from bank deposits
- Income from stock (is taxed differently from above and has a myriad rules like short/long term, wash sales, etc.)
- HSA
- IRA
- Local tax deductions
- Mortgage deductions
- Charity deductions
It became a bit simpler recently when standard deduction had been raised so most of these deductions aren't worth itemizing anymore, but before that I had to deal with it all. Obviously my workplace has no idea about any of it and can't deal with it. Some of them (like taxing income from bank deposits) can be done by the banks, but other stuff can only be properly calculated by somebody having the full picture, i.e. the IRS. Oh yes, and for many of those the actual tax level depends on my income. And not just plain income, but modified adjusted income (real term) - to calculate which you need to check a couple of dozens of rules on which parts are "modified" and which are "adjusted", and all of it depends on all of everything else, pretty much.
And it's not pocket change either - if it's not done right, the difference can easily be hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars even for mid-tier income like mine. IRS could calculate it all (well, except state taxes which is different rules in every single one of them) - but nobody else, realistically, could do it without me giving them all the data and them recreating what IRS has from scratch. Which is what H&R, Intuit and such are charging the money for.
And to be clear here - my taxes are very simple, comparatively. People have massively more complicated tax situations that I do. I'm still in the DIY zone, people with more complex taxes just hire somebody to do it for them, because there's no way a layman can figure it out.
JarJarJedi
20d ago
From where I stand, it all just feels like racketeering by H&R Block et al. to extort fees year after year.
Now that's mostly the case, but the roots of this system were actually in minimizing governmental intrusion into private life. In order to calculate your taxes for you, the government has to be aware of a lot of things you are doing. Now, you would say this is true anyway, and you'd be right. But the way the system was designed initially, that wasn't the case - the government was supposed to know what you report to them, and no more. That, of course, went out of the window long ago, but the system remained. Thus the idiotic situation where the government has all the data about you and your business (unless you take special steps to hide it, which are mostly illegal by now) but they are now allowed to use this data to calculate your taxes, so you have to do it by yourself. Then they will be allowed to use the same data to catch you if you're cheating. For me, as a software developer often dealing with, by now, decades-old code, this is a common situation - the system started with one set of assumptions in mind, they changed, but rebuilding the whole system from scratch is too inconvenient, so now everything works in weirdest ways that make no sense anymore.
JarJarJedi
20d ago
You know why. Because Hamas started the war with Israel on October 7, 2023. Since then those waters are a war zone. There's nothing "humanitarian" in the selfie flotilla though - there is no single thing that they could benefit any humanitarian cause in any way. Of course, they are certain kind of "aid" - but to the Hamas leadership, intent on inflicting damage on Israel, but these people are the furthest thing from a "humanitarian" possible.
What they want is housing to be affordable, but that's not a function of the price number (alone). Of course, if you try to optimize a complex problem by only concentrating on a single variable and asking "should it be bigger or smaller" - nobody would be able to give you a coherent answer, because there isn't one.
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