ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
Your houses seem much more generous than the IPMC.
In terms of dining/living space, yes, as explained above. In terms of sleeping space, no—the minimum is 50 ft2 per occupant under § 404.4.1, and I have kept as close to that minimum as possible. I make a bedroom larger than 50 ft2 per occupant only when I am forced to do so in order to keep the house rectangular.
Is there a reason you have a bathroom per bedroom?
I personally have found it quite annoying to live in a house with three bedrooms and one bathroom.
(In a dwelling unit, IPMC § 502.1 requires only one bathroom, regardless of the number of bedrooms. However, in a "rooming house" (defined in § 202; an apartment building with bathrooms shared between units), § 502.2 requires a minimum of one bathroom per four "rooming units", and that requirement can be pressed into service for houses as well.)
ToaKraka
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1d ago
baited breath
ToaKraka
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1d ago
The appeals panel's opinion on remand was issued just two days ago, so DNA testing probably has not yet been performed.
This is a family case, so the docket is sealed, and we probably never will know who the father is.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
My unhealthy obsession with designing houses continues unabated.
One somewhat strange aspect of the IPMC (International Property Maintenance Code) is table 404.5, which lays out the minimum areas of living rooms and dining rooms based on occupant count.
| Occupants | Living (ft2) | Dining (ft2) | Total (ft2) | ⌈Total per occupant⌉ (ft2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 120 | 0 | 120 | 120 |
| 2 | 120 | 0 | 120 | 60 |
| 3 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 67 |
| 4 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 50 |
| 5 | 120 | 80 | 200 | 40 |
| 6–∞ | 150 | 100 | 250 | 42–1 |
Obviously, it is nonsensical for the total required assembly area per occupant to bounce around like this.
IBC (International Building Code) table 1004.5 states that a dining/living room with tables and chairs should have 15 ft2 per occupant. Therefore, I am inclined to think that it would make sense to superimpose on IRC table 404.5 a failsafe minimum of 45 ft2 per occupant.
ToaKraka
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1d ago
Reuters: African Union backs campaign to end use of Mercator projection
The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organisations of the 16th-century Mercator map of the world in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa's size.
"It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not," AU Commission deputy chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters, saying the Mercator fostered a false impression that Africa was "marginal", despite being the world's second-largest continent by area, with 54 nations and over a billion people.
Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the 'Correct The Map' campaign led by advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa has revived the debate, urging organisations to adopt the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries' true sizes.
"The current size of the map of Africa is wrong," Moky Makura, executive director of Africa No Filter, said. "It's the world's longest misinformation and disinformation campaign, and it just simply has to stop."
Haddadi said the AU endorsed the campaign, adding it aligned with its goal of "reclaiming Africa's rightful place on the global stage" amid growing calls for reparations for colonialism and slavery.
'Correct The Map' wants organisations like the World Bank and the United Nations to adopt the Equal Earth map. A World Bank spokesperson said they already use the Winkel-Tripel or Equal Earth for static maps and are phasing out Mercator on web maps.
The campaign said it has sent a request to the UN geospatial body, UN-GGIM. A UN spokesperson said that once received it must be reviewed and approved by a committee of experts.
Other regions are backing the AU's efforts. Dorbrene O'Marde, Vice Chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission, endorsed Equal Earth as a rejection of Mercator map's "ideology of power and dominance".
ToaKraka
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2d ago
But hefting a weapon and swinging the same weapon are consecutive, not concurrent—in GURPS terms, a Ready action and then an Attack action.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
This sounds perfectly natural to me.
I think the complaint is that he actually hefted his mace before swinging (not while swinging, which is impossible), so it should be "He hefted his mace and swung at her".
Series of court opinions:
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A wife gives birth to a child. However, around the time of the child's conception, the wife was intimate not only with her husband but also with a paramour, so the child's paternity is uncertain. When informed of the pregnancy, the paramour at first disclaims interest in it, but a week later changes his mind. Shortly after the child is born, the paramour files a lawsuit to compel genetic testing and establish paternity. The husband testifies that, regardless of any DNA test's result, he will continue to love and care for the child.
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The trial judge rejects the paramour's request. (1) State caselaw incorporates an irrebuttable presumption of legitimacy: If paternity is uncertain, but around the time of conception the mother was in an intact marriage with a husband who was not absent, impotent, or sterile, then the husband is automatically considered the father, and this determination cannot be changed even with a DNA test. (2) State caselaw incorporates paternity by estoppel: After the paramour disclaimed interest in the child, the child and the husband were entitled to rely on that declaration, and the paramour was not permitted to change his mind and "pull the carpet out from under" the developing relationship between the child and the husband. The appeals panel affirms, solely on the first basis since it is dispositive.
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The state supreme court vacates and remands. The irrebuttability of the presumption of legitimacy is an outdated relic of the days before in vitro fertilization, minimally-invasive (cheek-swab rather than blood-vial) DNA testing, and nondiscrimination against illegitimate children. The presumption of legitimacy now can be rebutted with a DNA test if (1) there is a reasonable possibility that DNA testing will reveal the paramour to be the father and (2) DNA testing serves the best interest of the child. (The doctrine of paternity by estoppel is left unchanged. On remand, it may serve as an alternative basis to affirm the trial judge's ruling.)
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Two of the state supreme court's seven justices dissent in part. They think that the presumption of legitimacy already has been eliminated by the legislature, and therefore courts should be empowered to order DNA testing without a pointless multifactor test. One of the dissenters would go even further:
I cannot cling to the notion that it is the public policy of this Commonwealth that children’s interests are necessarily served by "the stability of an intact family unit" led by married parents. I would emphasize that families regularly flourish under non-traditional configurations and that families regularly falter under traditional ones. Nowhere is it assured that a stable family unit, defined as one involving a married couple, will remain as such for any prescribed period of time let alone the entirety of a childhood. Ultimately, it is the legislative prerogative to identify and implement the Commonwealth’s policy preference, especially in an arena as sensitive as marriage and child-rearing. The Legislature provided for no fault divorce, making severance of marriages relatively easy; it endorsed scientific testing to determine paternity allowing for the potential involvement of a third party in a married couple’s family unit. As to the preferred structure of the family unit, the clearest statement of the Legislature is that in all cases, the best interests of the child must prevail in custody matters. Given the co-existence of the statutes that recognize expedient termination of marriages, the recognition of a third party’s genetic paternity to a child born to a married couple and the dominance of the child’s best interests in custody matters, I am hard pressed to find a legislative declaration that it is the clear public policy of the Commonwealth that marriages involving children must be preserved.
(The other dissenter refrains from joining this footnote.) -
On remand, the appeals panel reverses the trial judge. Regarding the presumption of legitimacy: DNA testing serves the interest of the child in knowing its biological father. Regarding paternity by estoppel: In past cases, the doctrine has been applied when a paramour filed his paternity lawsuit multiple years after the child's birth. However, in this case the paramour filed his paternity lawsuit just eight days after the child's birth, so there was hardly any "developing relationship between the child and the husband" to be torn asunder. (Of course, after all this lawyering the child is two years old.)
ToaKraka
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3d ago
This forum also has seen some Aella-inspired discussion of this phenomenon.
ToaKraka
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3d ago
Does this have anything to do with Trump?
The article does mention some connections with Trump specifically and with the US government in general.
Prince, a former U.S. Navy Seal, founded the Blackwater military security firm in 1997. He sold the company in 2010 after Blackwater employees were convicted of unlawfully killing 14 unarmed civilians while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy in Baghdad's Nisour Square. The men were pardoned by Trump during his first term in the White House.
Since Trump's return to the White House, Prince has advised Ecuador on how to fight criminal gangs and struck a deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo to help secure and tax its mineral wealth.
“It’s hard to imagine them operating without the consent of the Trump administration,” said Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, head of the Haiti program at Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
When asked for comment about Le Cour Grandmaison's assertion, a State Department spokesperson said it has not hired Prince or his company for any work in Haiti.
A senior White House official said: "The U.S. government has no involvement with the private military contractor hired by the Haitian government. We are not funding this contract or exercising any oversight.”
ToaKraka
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3d ago
The prominent Donald Trump supporter and private security executive Erik Prince says he has a 10-year deal with Haiti to fight the country's criminal gangs, and then take a role in restoring the country's tax-collection system.
In an interview with Reuters, Prince said his company, Vectus Global, would be involved in designing and implementing a program to tax goods imported across Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic once the security situation is stabilized.
He said he expected to wrestle control of major roads and territories from the gangs in about a year. “One key measure of success for me will be when you can drive from Port-au-Prince to Cap Haitian in a thin-skinned vehicle and not be stopped by gangs,” Prince said in the interview.
Prince would not comment about how much the Haitian government would pay Vectus Global, nor how much tax he expects to collect in Haiti.
A person familiar with the company's operations in Haiti told Reuters that Vectus would intensify its fight against the criminal gangs that control large swathes of Haiti in the coming weeks in coordination with the Haitian police, deploying several hundred fighters from the United States, Europe and El Salvador who are trained as snipers and specialists in intelligence and communications, as well as helicopters and boats. Vectus's force includes some French and Creole speakers, the person said.
Haiti used to collect half of its tax revenue at the border with the Dominican Republic, but gang control of key transport routes has crippled trade and cut off state income, a report commissioned last year by Haiti's government and several multilateral organizations found. This has undermined the government's ability to respond to the crisis or deliver basic services, the report said.
Other security firms working in Haiti have raised questions about how Vectus would hold onto cleared gang territory as well as the wisdom of channelling resources to private security firms instead of the country's own security forces.
ToaKraka
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4d ago
This issue is the focus of the sole dissent from the ICJ's opinion (authored by Judge Donoghue of the US).
Today the Court recites once again that there would be “compelling reasons” to decline to give an advisory opinion when such a reply “would have the effect of circumventing the principle that a State is not obliged to allow its disputes to be submitted to judicial settlement without its consent”. However, the decision to render today’s Advisory Opinion demonstrates that this incantation is hollow. It is difficult to imagine any dispute that is more quintessentially bilateral than a dispute over territorial sovereignty. The absence of United Kingdom consent to adjudication of that bilateral dispute has been steadfast and deliberate. Mauritius was thwarted by this absence of consent, so took another route, pursuing the present request and thereby fulfilling the affirmation of its Foreign Minister in 2004 that the State would use “all avenues open to us in order to exercise our full sovereign rights over the Chagos Archipelago”. The delivery of this Advisory Opinion is a circumvention of the absence of consent.
ToaKraka
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5d ago
That may be your opinion, but the ICJ decided otherwise by a vote of 13 to 1.
In its resolution 2066 (XX) of 16 December 1965, adopted a few weeks after the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago, the General Assembly deemed it appropriate to recall the obligation of the United Kingdom, as the administering Power, to respect the territorial integrity of Mauritius. The Court considers that the obligations arising under international law and reflected in the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly during the process of decolonization of Mauritius require the United Kingdom, as the administering Power, to respect the territorial integrity of that country, including the Chagos Archipelago.
The Court concludes that, as a result of the Chagos Archipelago’s unlawful detachment and its incorporation into a new colony, known as the BIOT, the process of decolonization of Mauritius was not lawfully completed when Mauritius acceded to independence in 1968.
The ICJ has a conveniently abbreviated press release that can be found on this page. tl;dr: The UK granted independence to Mauritius in 1968 only after purchasing from Mauritius indefinite ownership of the Chagos Islands and evicting those islands' inhabitants. This was not a proper execution of the UK's duty to decolonize Mauritius. The UK must give the islands back to Mauritius. (Resettlement of the former inhabitants is a separate issue.)
ToaKraka
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5d ago
I'm not sure whether this counts as culture-war material, but it definitely is political, and I found it extremely interesting.
Daily Telegraph (found via Breitbart):
Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands deal will cost 10 times more than he claimed, official figures reveal.
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
Labour ministers now face claims that they misled Parliament and the press with an “accountancy trick” to hide the size of the bill from taxpayers.
An official document produced by the Government Actuary’s Department shows the cost of the deal was first estimated at 10 times Sir Keir’s figure, at £34.7bn, in nominal terms.
The UK will pay £165m a year to rent Diego Garcia for the first three years.
The rent payments will then be set at £120m a year, increasing in line with inflation from year 14.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century, in what critics say was a deliberate attempt to mislead the public.
Writing for The Telegraph, Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, said: “Instead of owning up to the costs, Labour have used an accountancy trick to claim the amount was only a mere £3.4bn.”
Foreign Office sources insisted ministers had used a “standard” calculation for long-term government spending, and denied accusations that it was part of a “cover-up”.
However, other projects announced by Labour have not used the same method, which has allowed ministers to advertise higher spending on popular policies. Angela Rayner has since launched a 10-year affordable homes plan that included inflation-level increases in government spending as part of the cost of the policy – a method not used with the Chagos deal.
I'm getting flashbacks to my Engineering Accounting class in college. Calculations in this vein definitely are used on a regular basis for cost–benefit calculations in engineering. And a long-term discount rate of 5–6 percent certainly sounds reasonable to me. But, if discount rates are being used selectively rather than uniformly, that indeed would count as an "accountancy trick".
New York City is rather large for a "municipality", if you weren't aware. It has twice as many people as the adjacent state of Connecticut (8.5 million vs. 3.7 million), and nine-tenths as many people as the adjacent state of New Jersey (9.5 million). And it contains Wall Street. It's practically as important as a state.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
I use a modded Reddit apk, but the experience is just abysmal.
I recommend just using your mobile Web browser, with the "New Reddit" interface toggled off in your account settings.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
It would be a nice dogwhistle for "mudslime" (common slur for Muslim/Arab).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7d ago
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Naruto fanfiction (circa 2010) → Harry Potter fanfiction → TVTropes fanfiction-recommendation pages → HPMOR (circa 2014) → Big Yud's Facebook page → Slate Star Codex
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HPMOR → /r/rational → /r/themotte
Or something like that.
ToaKraka
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9d ago
You said that getting a concealed-carry permit is trivially easy, and in support of that first statement you said that sheriffs aren't allowed to contact the references provided by an applicant for that permit. My point is that your second statement appears to be incorrect, so your first statement is weaker. (Though a different lawyer says that your second statement is correct and Columbia County is violating the law.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
9d ago
Columbia County's online application states that an applicant's references must call the sheriff's office within five days of the applicant's applying.
The only minor impediment
Don't forget the requirement of two references, including at every five-year renewal.
I write with " - " transitions all the time. Is that materially different from that em-dash thing all the kids are complaining about? Do I look like an AI??????
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Human or LLM: Yes—no—maybe (em dashes)
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Lazy human: Yes--no--maybe (pairs of hyphens as ersatz em dashes)
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Idiosyncratic human: Yes – no – maybe (en dashes plus spaces)
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Lazy and idiosyncratic human: Yes - no - maybe (hyphens as ersatz en dashes, plus spaces)
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Insane human: Yes- no- maybe
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Insane human: Yes — no — maybe (em dashes plus spaces)
Gran Colombia
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