ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
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19hr ago
Assume your debt is like credit-card debt and transferable.
What exactly do you mean by this? The 800-k$ mortgage would be, not secured by the 1-M$ house, but unsecured (and therefore carrying a vastly higher interest rate)?
ToaKraka
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1d ago
Case where the US Supreme Court did something like this: 1 2
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If a child is born outside the US and out of wedlock to a citizen parent and an alien parent, then the child becomes a citizen only if the alien parent lived in the US for N years before the child's birth. By default, N is 10 under the law applicable when petitioner was born (5 under the law applicable today). But a separate law establishes an exception setting N to just 1 if the alien parent is the mother, implicitly making N = 10 applicable only if the alien parent is the father.
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Petitioner is born outside the US and out of wedlock to a citizen mother and an alien father. The alien father was present in the US for literally 9.95 years. Petitioner doesn't get citizenship, and sues.
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The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that the second law establishing a gender-based exception is unconstitutional discrimination. However, it is empowered only to strike down the second law, and cannot rewrite the first law to extend the 1-year exception to fathers. So the petitioner still doesn't get citizenship.
ToaKraka
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1d ago
Didn't you look at my Google Maps link? These houses barely have backyards in the first place.
ToaKraka
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1d ago
Basically, yes, if you look at the floor plans… except Internet Archive unfortunately failed to capture Lennar's original JavaScript-infested webpages properly, but luckily I downloaded the floor plan for the 660-ft2 Henley version back when the original webpages were still up.
Lennar, one of the biggest homebuilding companies in the US, caught some attention a few years ago for building and selling a bunch of minuscule 350-ft2 houses (visible on Google Maps here). So it isn't totally outside the realm of possibility.
ToaKraka
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1d ago
The Duolicious dating website (which originated on 4chan's /soc/ board) did something somewhat similar.
What we really did was ask ChatGPT to pretend to be an extrovert, then pretend to be an introvert [using one trait in the entire list of 47 traits as an example]. Then we made ChatGPT answer all 2005 questions in our question bank five times while playing those roles. Except instead of asking them as yes/no questions, we asked ChatGPT to answer on a scale from 0 to 10 (called a Likert scale, for you psychology nerds).
ToaKraka
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1d ago
There's a limit somewhere, though. Do Moon landings benefit humans? Obviously, as a step toward extraction and colonization. Do Saturn probes benefit humans? Maybe, if I squint. Do deep-space telescopes benefit humans? I personally don't see how.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
The Zanarkand Abes are a sports team in Final Fantasy 10.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
ToaKraka
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2d ago
Thresholder has just ended—on a huge anticlimax, but I guess readers should have been expecting that for a while. The author's postmortem thoughts and plans for the future are also available.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
I was introduced to Paradox Development Studio games through Europa Universalis 2. I was too young to actually understand how to play properly, so I just played as the Mamluks (the biggest blob on the map at game start), took out loan after loan to fund my massive armies, and got confused when I went bankrupt. I eventually found a cheat or a console command or something to give me infinite money, but the experience still left me very leery of taking out loans.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
Nothing is certain. Maybe I'll become unable to tolerate the moderators. Maybe I'll fly to Australia to fuck a prostitute and get stabbed in an alley by a thug. Maybe my depression will get worse and I'll shoot myself in the head.
I'm just another random fake person on the Internet.
ToaKraka
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2d ago
A cursory search indicates that "self-leveling concrete" can be used as underlayment, but I guess it's much less common than plywood.
ToaKraka
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3d ago
The Associated Press: In January 2025, Mexico passed a constitutional amendment banning the sale (but not the possession or use) of electronic cigarettes (vapes). A law to actually implement the ban was passed in December 2025. Naturally, the cartels have taken over the market.
ToaKraka
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3d ago
For example, Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure § 1925:
Upon receipt of the notice of appeal, the judge who entered the order giving rise to the notice of appeal, if the reasons for the order do not already appear of record, shall within [60 days] file of record at least a brief opinion of the reasons for the order, or for the rulings or other errors complained of, or shall specify in writing the place in the record where such reasons may be found.
But that's specifically for decisions that are appealed.
The Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Construction portray:
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Joists
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"Subflooring" of plywood
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"Underlayment" of plywood, required for some finishes but not for others
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Finish
A cursory Internet search indicates that the underlayment may alternatively be fiberboard, particleboard, etc.
ToaKraka
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3d ago
According to the US Census Bureau, of all single-family houses completed in year 2024:
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26 percent have non-slab foundations (i. e., joists in the first floor). Regionally, it's 61 percent in the colder Northeast and Midwest (where the footings must be placed deep even for a slab, so you may as well add a basement), versus 18 percent in the warmer South and West.
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53 percent have more than one floor (i. e., joists in at least one non-first floor). Regionally, it's 80 percent in the Northeast (presumably due to higher population density) and 51 percent in the other three regions.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
Related article:
The saga of Judge Pauline Newman is well known. For three years, the Federal Circuit has not assigned any new cases to Judge Newman because she refuses to obtain certain medical tests. Back in April 2023, I described this process as a stealth impeachment. A judge without any cases is no longer a judge.
I suspect the most obvious reply is that there is a difference between impeaching a judge and simply taking away their cases. After all, Judge Newman retains her fixed compensation and title. I am not so convinced. A judge's job is to decide cases. Imagine that Congress passed a statute providing that any judge who rules against President Trump will no longer be assigned any new cases, but they can keep their salary and title. Or what if Congress were to pass a statute divesting jurisdiction over every suit filed against the executive branch in Boston, and reassign those cases to the Amarillo Division of the Northern District of Texas. How would Judge Young and his colleagues respond?
Imagine that a federal judge decided that he would no longer offer any rationales for his decisions. He would simply invite the parties to court, listen to their arguments, and announce a judgment for the plaintiff or the defendant from the bench, and then adjourn court. Following that oral order, the clerk would enter a judgment for the prevailing party. The judge explains that he only needs to issue an order, and no statute requires him to explain his reasoning. The Circuit Court consistently reverses this judge's rulings, and grants writs of mandamus, but the judge continues his practice.
Based on this "pattern or practice" of rulings, many litigants in the district file misconduct complaints. Could this complaint proceed, and if so, could the Judicial Council order that no new cases would be assigned to the judge until he begins to issue reasoned decisions for at least some of his rulings?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
Erotic authors and artists have been depicting """goblins""" as women who happen to be very short and have green skin for many years. It doesn't even count as a fetish at this point.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
I started using this manual procedure many years ago, after Fanfiction.net blocked the automatic-download website that I was using at the time and then blocked the automated-download program that I clumsily wrote for myself in Baby's First Java.
ArchiveOfOurOwn already has built-in downloading capabilities.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
In a recent conversation with [Alex Pretti], his parents, who live in Colorado, told him to be careful when protesting.
“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti said. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
(It appears that statements allegedly made by them regarding his "unusual behavior" are fabricated.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
I will register the unpopular opinion that I personally have no objection to being called "it".
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