JulianRota
7mo ago
I've been reading, and am most of the way through Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island: The World War II Battle That Saved Marine Corps Aviation. It's decent I guess. I'd say it's kind of two types of book combined into one.
One type, and the type IMO it actually works at, is as a series of short stories about the air battles between the "Cactus Air Force" on Guadalcanal in WWII and the Imperial Japanese forces. This is in the early days of the war, when American forces were mostly few in number, poorly trained, poorly equipped, and going up against the the cream of the crop of experienced Japanese veterans. The forces end up fairly evenly matched overall, and the stories are exciting. The Americans sometimes take a beating and sometimes dish one out, depending on the details of how well equipped they are at the moment, what tactics the Japanese use that particular time, the weather, etc.
The other type is as a coherent overall story with characters that you care about and who have a narrative. I think it fails at that. There's just too many people, coming and going at random times. There's brief individual stories about some of them, but I don't feel like I remember any of them in particular, or understand them or really care about them in particular. Major issues get brought up as a huge problem, then just forgotten about.
Of course, I still respect their sacrifices and all that. I just don't think it works narratively. It does make me understand a bit more why so many more compelling but fictional war movies keep the focus excessively tightly on a small group that suffers relatively few casualties during the story, even if that isn't really that realistic.
JulianRota
7mo ago
What do people think about replacing batteries on modern smartphones?
My current phone is a 2-year old Pixel 8, and the battery is starting to get noticeably worse. Nothing too dire yet, but it is starting to seem beneficial to do some extra charging during the day in addition to leaving it on a charger all night. In the past, every time a phone of mine has started to see serious battery degradation, I've gotten a whole new phone, because at least one of the following was also the case:
- Various minor physical damage had accumulated - screen cracks, scratches and scuffs on the edge or back, etc
- It had become generally slow and flaky
- I was actually excited about the new features and capabilities of the newer models
- Total physical destruction or loss
Now, for the first time, none of those are the case. This phone is still in perfect physical condition, runs great, and there's nothing I find interesting about the newer models. It feels like a bit much to get a whole new one just because of the battery thing, so I'm wondering if it might make sense to replace just the battery.
On the other hand, I looked up the instructions for how to do it. Yikes. Apparently I would need like a dozen pricey specialized tools to do it myself and the whole process sounds really sketchy, like there's a dozen ways to accidentally break something if I do anything a little bit wrong. So maybe I take it to a shop to do it. I guess that might be a good option, but it's hard to see online how much that would cost or get a feel for how reliable such services are.
So I guess, has anyone else done it themselves or had a shop do it? I don't think it matters much exactly what brand or model phone, it seems like they all have similar construction and disassembly techniques and risks. Were you happy with the result? Was it worth the cost versus getting a whole new device?
JulianRota
9mo ago
In my opinion, if you're mostly on the road, not doing serious distance yet, and not entirely sure what kind of riding you want to do, then a Hybrid is probably what you want. Usually they're mostly mountain bike frame and parts, but smoother tires, possibly road wheels, and at least slightly relaxed handlebars. They're usually okay-ish at pretty much everything and not terrible at anything. Maybe not quite enough tire grip and wheel strength for semi-serious trail riding, and not quite comfortable enough for long rides at high effort level compared to a road bike, but you probably won't notice until you actually try to do those things.
You probably want brand names on everything, but not top-end stuff. Usually means Shimano parts and pretty much any brand advertised and sold in actual bicycle stores. 2012ish Trek hybrid sounds decent as long as it comes reasonably close to fitting you. I don't honestly know what that runs these days, but used is probably a good deal. Bikes like this will usually go thousands of miles without breaking stuff, and are easy to fix or replace parts on if needed. The Walmart specials tend to start falling apart after a few hundred miles and be difficult to fix or find replacement parts for.
It may take some experience to understand how road bikes are really supposed to fit and work. You should be leaning forward enough to put significant weight on your hands. The drop bars provide several places to put your hands to help with this strain. Between putting significant force on the pedals most of the time and keeping some weight on your hands, there shouldn't be that much weight on the seat most of the time, so it's not meant to be that comfortable for just tooling around.
The only bike I actually have right now is a fixed-gear on a road bike frame I built many years ago. It's decently fun and comfortable for most things for me, and ugly enough to not be an attractive theft target. The lack of gears make it not that great for climbing hills/bridges, but it's okay for me on the ones near me. Also not great for carrying cargo, but I don't have much need for that now. I used to have a nice hybrid like the one I'm suggesting, which had decent saddlebags for cargo, but it got stolen a while ago. I do miss it a bit, but I wouldn't have storage room for it now anyways. I sold my nicer road bike a while ago too, since I don't ride long-distance much anymore.
It might also be worth getting a setup for changing out tire tubes that you can ride with if you are interested in riding at least moderately far away from home and civilization.
JulianRota
9mo ago
Okay that sounds like a reasonable take, I missed getting an update on that event sufficiently long after it happened for the truth to actually come out.
Though I might quibble a little about whether it was a "dirty lie", or wild speculation very soon after the event before any actual facts came out, which there tends to be an ample amount of after any high-profile event, including the Kirk assassination.
JulianRota
9mo ago
Disagree, look at the 60s and 70s.
By "this era" I did mean after the 60s and 70s era of political unrest. Not sure of an exact date actually, I guess after the relatively domestically peaceful 80s and 90s. Though I suppose you'd then have to overlook the OKC bombing, which is maybe reasonable, since it was more anti-government than anti either political party or tribal side.
That wasn't anymore fabricated than a typical sting operation. Maybe you're against police stings in general, but it's common. Happen with drugs, prostitution, money laundering, child pornography honeypots, fake assassination hiring sites etc.
I'm not against police stings in general, but there's most definitely a line they have crossed at times where it seems more like they're enabling or encouraging crime that wouldn't otherwise happen instead of thwarting people with serious intent to commit major crimes. I don't know about the case you cited in particular, but they have definitely done this with so-called Islamic terrorists too. In this case they "befriended" some developmentally disabled teenager and eventually cajoled him into sending pitifully small amounts of money to somebody he believed was associated with ISIS, then busted him and patted themselves on the back for "stopping ISIS". Do you think that's an appropriate use of police resources?
Exactly where the line is for this is a bit fuzzy. But I think a good indicator that you're way off on the wrong side of the line is when multiple defendants get acquitted after a successful entrapment defense.
JulianRota
9mo ago
I don't know all of these for sure, but:
Pelosi's husband being attacked.
I don't think there was any indication the attacker was a conservative who hated them for being liberal. As I recall, it was more like some sort of dispute between friends or possibly lovers.
The kidnapping plot against Whitmer.
You mean the one that was entirely fabricated by FBI informants?
And Luigi Mangione is the only one that deserves an asterisk?
I think this might qualify as the most explicitly political violence yet to happen in this era of political division. Depending on who they turn up as the shooter, presuming that they do eventually.
JulianRota
9mo ago
I finished reading Kurt Schlichter's American Apocalypse, about a second American Civil War, written pretty recently, so it doesn't feel ridiculously out of touch with current events. He's a red-team author, so naturally the book has the red team side be the good guys and win the war. It repeats the style from his previous book The Attack of being written from the perspective of a post-event author doing interviews with a series of participants in the event in a variety of different positions, so it's effectively a series of moderately connected short stories. I found it an engaging and enjoyable read, and much more fleshed-out with regard to how things actually progress and escalate than most other new civil war stories.
The way things escalate towards a hot war seems to paint the Blue side as maximally bad and the Red side as only as bad as they are forced to be. I enjoy reading that, but it does feel a bit improbable I suppose. It doesn't soft-petal how nasty such a war would be likely to be too much - it includes such things a double-digit millions of innocent Americans dying due to starvation and disease from collapse of food and healthcare logistics and both blue and red militias and guerillas treating civilians who oppose them poorly. It ends with a red "Special Security Force" department which confiscates all of the possessions of blue-teamers who were too influential, sometimes locks them into "reeducation camps" and forbids them from ever having an important job again until they earn a "rehabilitation certificate". It seems to take the position that, yeah, there isn't traditional American free expression anymore, but what else are you going to do when the Blues take advantage of that to weaponize every institution, seize power, and horribly abuse ordinary Americans. Not exactly something I'd care to endorse now, but maybe in a world where the events portrayed in the book actually did happen.
I do notice that it doesn't pay attention to a number of aspects of what I think would actually happen if there was ever actually a new Civil War. Not much detail about what actual Mexican Cartels and other large organized gangs would do in such a situation, besides a one-liner about how Mexican Cartels took over Arizona in that world. Or Islamic militants or other religious issues for that matter. Not much about race either - I don't think there's anywhere near as much racism in Red ideology as the Blues would have you believe, but there isn't none, and wars tend to enable the craziest people to really let their crazy flag fly. I suppose it's a bit much to expect to cover that stuff in a book that's supposed to be red meat to the actual Red Team.
I've also been trying to read Scott Horton's Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine. It's basically okay, but rather long and repetitive so far in my opinion. I'd like to read like like 50-100 pages or so of a steelman of how American diplomacy backed Russia into a corner, in their opinion at least, but I'm not sure I care to slog through ::checks listing:: 2,316 pages of it. Wow, didn't realize it was quite that long. Maybe I probably won't actually finish that one after all.
JulianRota
9mo ago
I do live in New York, but just saw this. Wouldn't have been able to make it anyways, I just flew back in from Europe last night at like 10:30pm.
JulianRota
10mo ago
Along the lines of what Amadan said, I think you need to first think about what the long-term future looks like with all of the options you are considering.
Say the woman at least intends to be genuine and the baby is real and actually yours, and you actually move there and attempt to raise a family. Do you really know this woman well enough to know what a long-term relationship with her would look like, across such a huge gap in culture and wealth? I don't know what you did with her over those weeks, but did you really see her in enough situations to get a feel for who she really is? Do you speak any of the local language at all? And what of your friends and family and any career you may have here in the US (assuming you were born and raised in the US, or wherever else you're from), what will they think of you when you tell them you're moving to the Philippines to marry and raise a family with a local stripper? What if it ends up not working out and you have to move back?
Or say you go along with the idea that the kid is real and yours and you want to support it. This will be an obligation for decades, and it will almost certainly come out eventually. What if, 8 years from now, you get into a serious relationship with a regular woman in your actual home city? She will eventually find out that you're sending money to and communicating with someone in the Philippines. What will you tell her and what will she think of you as a result of that?
Or option 3, you just block and ignore her from now on and completely forget about her, possibly sending money for an alleged abortion before doing so. This option closes the door on this unfortunate situation for good. Nothing in your current life or future will be affected by it, nobody will know except your own conscience and the people of the Motte here.
When you think about it like that, I think it's clear that Option 3 is the only real choice. Does it feel a little bad? Yeah maybe. But you acted like a total douchebag travelling to the Philippines and having unprotected sex with a third-world sex worker in the first place. There's nothing to do now but complete the act and ditch her. There's no magic pill to get out of this cleanly for you. If you feel bad about it, congratulations, you've discovered that you are not actually a total douchebag. Therefore, cease doing douchebag things. It's not really that bad in the grand scheme of things - you screwed up, but you've learned some about who you are and why you should not do certain things. And yeah, 95% chance she's scamming you and the kid is fake or not actually yours, and if it's the other 5%, well she's in the business and not a little kid, she should damn well know this is a possibility by now, and if not, it's about time she learned. Either way, she already has a big family and 2 kids, she'll be okay in the long run whatever the actual deal is here.
JulianRota
11mo ago
I don't know if you're particularly interested in the "foreign resistance fighter memoir" thing, but I did actually read that book. In my opinion, it was a moderately interesting memoir with very little in the way of actual political opinions at all, aside from an opposition to Russian expansionism. I don't see any reason at all to "cancel" it besides ridiculous hysteria about "nazis".
Which of course completely reversed overnight when Russia did actually invade Ukraine full-scale, at which point Azov battalion suddenly becomes glorious heroes, regardless of how much Nazi imagery and terminology they use, and the Canadian Parliament gives an award to an actual Ukrainian Waffen SS member for fighting against Russia in WWII.
JulianRota
11mo ago
I've considered writing something similar in the more general department of how fiction affects peoples' worldviews. I see it a lot in terms of discussions on criminal justice in particular.
My impression from the sources I've read that seem to accurately reflect the "average" case rather than cases or regions cherry-picked for some particular reason is that around 90% of all people charged with crimes in the United States are guilty as sin and busted dead to rights. Meanwhile, huge numbers of people seem to believe things like that most people are innocent or crazy serial killers are everywhere or something like that, because all their knowledge comes from fictional media optimized for drama, and documentaries that cherry-pick outrageous cases and exaggerate how outrageous they are.
I have at least some elements of this. Though mostly not quite as bad as some of the other posters in this thread. I think some of mine is probably a little ridiculous and excessive, and some is quite justified.
I never had much appetite for participating in traditional social media. The kind like Facebook and Instagram where you're expected to have an account under your real name and accumulate as "friends" everyone you've ever known, or even met for a few minutes one time. I just can't think of anything I really want to post or show to such a huge variety of people. I've pretty much abandoned the original accounts I had on these and never even check them at all. All of the bad behavior and dark patterns of big tech don't particularly help and provide additional justification, but I think that feeling is the actual core reason for me. So I do the majority of my online social interaction in relatively small group chats of people I know well. I think this is probably healthier overall anyways.
I do feel an urge to conceal things I look at at work, where we're all in a big open office with everyone's screen visible. I think I've managed to keep it mostly under control. I tell myself that nobody's going to pay attention to a big wall of text, so it doesn't matter what it says. I try to avoid having any pictures or video displayed too long and often switch out of "personal" browsers when someone comes by my desk.
Strangely, I actually feel the complete opposite sometimes. I actually love performing on stage in front of big audiences. Always have, never needed to do any particular trick or technique for it. Maybe it's because I'm consciously putting on an act, or that there's so many people that none of them really "count" as people. I'm not quite sure.
I think I like showing only certain parts of myself to most people and social groups. I think I've always had a bit of a split personality. I have a need for a certain amount of spice in my life, and probably some of the things I've done or enjoy would really shock and put off some of the tamer groups I'm around, like most work people, tech-related groups, probably most rationalist-sphere groups. So I mostly hide that part of myself in those places. I also enjoy nerding out on things, understanding things in way too much detail, writing excessively in-depth effortposts here sometimes. I know some of the more out-there people I'm friends with don't care to hear that sort of thing, so I hide that part of myself around them. Is this excessive hiding, or just reading the room and fitting in to social groups? I'm not entirely sure. I feel mostly pretty satisfied with my friendships, even though I don't think any one person really gets all of me.
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