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VoxelVexillologist

Multidimensional Radical Centrist

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joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC

				

User ID: 64

VoxelVexillologist

Multidimensional Radical Centrist

1 follower   follows 0 users   joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC

					

No bio...


					

User ID: 64

This is how the Boring Company is going to solve tunnel price:

  • Cars are much smaller than trains [citation needed] and don't require as much sheer size.
  • Cars travel on concrete, not rail, and this surface is perfectly suited for passenger exit, meaning that you don't need an extra passenger lane as long as there's enough room to get past the cars. (Note: in the current Loop tunnels, there is, even though it's not obvious in a lot of the videos that have been posted. It's not comfortable, but it's enough for emergency evac.)
  • We can reduce the necessary emergency equipment by having frequent stations. Trust me on this for now! I'll get back to this one very quickly.

All of this put together makes Boring Company tunnels a whole lot cheaper than train tunnels.

I'm not sure I believe this. The current FHWA guidelines for vehicle tunnels requires exits at no less than 1000 ft spacing (which is plausibly close to your station spacing), and requires a 3.6ft wide protected pedestrian egress walkway -- not just squeezing past potentially burning vehicles. That's pretty clearly not done for Musk's tunnels, nor is it easily plausible with their existing boring machine sizes. There are no shortage of tragic accidents involving tunnels, and EV fires are particularly concerning in some ways.

Honestly, I would tend to cite Thunderf00t's rant about why the Boring Company is ill-advised in its adventures.

I long assumed that Twitter's character limit was maintained due to a database schema somewhere: a fixed-size Tweet structure probably makes a lot of sense, although if you're reserving 10kB for each post here I bet that would add up quick. Although with compression perhaps that's less of an issue.

IMO a lot of folks view divisive politics very pessimistically. I'd compare that to telling a married couple having an argument that they're destined for divorce: maybe, but not always. To get on my soapbox, unity takes effort: it's work, and it often feels unfair, but it can be worth it.

There should be good security involving user IPs given the content of posts published. Bad actors will try to steal user IP histories if the site gains in popularity.

I'm not up on the current state of the art here, but I think VPN companies have been pushing a lot of scare mongering regarding IP addresses and how easily they're tied back to individuals. They can pretty easily be tied to ISPs, and sometimes to unique clients within an ISP, but it doesn't map to an individual. At best it would map to a single customer network, but even if it's a home network my understanding is that ISPs don't generally reveal IP-to-customer mappings without a subpoena, and I don't really expect postings here to rise to the level of legal involvement. And even then, the public IP logged on the web site might well be hidden by carrier-grade NAT, which is IIRC pretty common in mobile telephony. If you're really concerned, I recommend finding public WiFi without unique login credentials (your local Starbucks or the library) or using a VPN (although some VPNs keep logs). Bonus points for using a device that scrambles MAC addresses on a per-connection basis, which I believe the iPhone and some Android devices can be configured to do, and even Windows supports.

This used to be an issue with peer-to-peer filesharing users, and may continue to be, but I don't really travel in those circles these days. Also watch Zorba's warrant canary on the Contact Us page.

may the next decade be as kind to you as the past decade has been to Deviant Art.

Is there a longer story here I'm unaware of? I remember it used to be a popular site, but it's still around even if its luster has faded over time (plenty of other sites have seen this as well). Was there a particular moment or sequence of Tumblr-style self-immolation that I missed?

Some speculate it was because of yet another false flag fedposter who lurked for 3 years before posting a blatant bomb threat that was promptly deleted by moderators in less than 20 minutes,

It seems it might be useful for a forum (perhaps such as this one) to, in times of acute concern, have a feature to disable posting both for new accounts (or disabling account creation) and long-time-lurker-account-first-time-posters.

If you don't want advertising on your TV, don't watch OTA TV, limit your viewing to paid streaming services that don't show ads.

I know plenty of folks that use the classic technique of changing the channel when commercials come on OTA/cable TV and radio. I suspect the same is true for skipping over ads within YouTube videos and podcasts (which seems like a serious fraction of runtime for even the NPR podcasts these days). Is this technique unethical? What about automating it?

Google Chrome is now banning ad blockers starting as early as next year.

I wonder what this means for Mozilla and the folks behind Firefox. I understand why they made the choice they did, but I was very disappointed when Microsoft decided to base their browser development off of Chromium rather than Gecko: a well-supported alternate platform seems like it would be really helpful for consumers.

Phrasing this as a threat to existence evokes thoughts of genocide.

I always do a double take at the idea of a population that is (largely) voluntarily sterile could be subject to "genocide," since that term literally invokes the idea of a genetic lineage. Can we blame New Atheism for the "genocide" of the last remnants of the Shaker community, who practice celibacy and rely on conversions from outside the community? There are, last I checked, exactly two living Shakers, down from thousands at their cultural peak.

To be clear, I'm not attempting to lessen any of the usual definitions of genocide, but I think trying to wield the weaker definitions as a rhetorical weapon cheapens actual violence against actually-vulnerable groups.

If anything, that's what I'm trying to point out with the example of the Shakers: they are voluntarily sterile (celibate), and they really are almost certainly going to disappear completely within my lifetime, but I don't know that this fact makes a good argument against anti-Shaker (or more broadly, anti-Chrisitian or anti-Theist) communities as "committing genocide." I don't really agree with New Atheism, but I think (excluding acts of actual violence) it can't fairly be called "genocide" either.

Let me be quite clear what I would accept as “NATO forces” participating in offensive: a unit of active duty soldiers from the same NATO army, which was put together by said NATO army and sent to join AFU. Volunteer veterans slapdashed together into a unit upon arrival by the AFU military leadership does not count as NATO force.

There is a plausible middle ground on this definition: something like the Flying Tigers, who were recruited from US forces to fly against Japan for the Republic of China Air Force as effectively (well-paid) mercenaries under the command of retired Army officer Claire Chennault. I have never found any evidence they were acknowledged to exist prior to the US entry into WWII (although their first combat missions only occurred some days later), but they were discharged and their travel papers declared them as mechanics or instructors. After US entry into the war, they were absorbed into the USAAF under the same commander. It would be difficult for me to describe them as anything other than "American forces, if covert."

Of course, I've seen no evidence that such an arrangement is happening today, and it seems that like the Soviet "instructors" and "test pilots" in Korea and Vietnam, it would probably be difficult to hide today.

commonly-understood usage of "AGI"

Honestly, I follow this field largely peripherally, but I don't think anyone understands what "AGI" means. There's a lot of scaremongering about what "generalized intelligence" will entail (it's a classic science fiction trope!), but from what I'm seeing of the development it's not clear that "generalized" will be the sort of thing easily weaponized against us. It seems quite plausible to me that existing neural models won't inherently have any sort of long-term objectives or goals. Are emotions separable from intelligence like science fiction authors would have us believe?

As a rough comparison, I feel like an observer in 1900 watching lots of attempts at powered heavier-than-air flight, but wondering if initiatives to stop investing in roads ("we'll fly!") or railroads (we do fly sometimes) are well-timed. It seems likely someone will be successful, but exactly what it will look like is unclear, and I'm not sure we should start planning for our ornithopter overlords.

The US hadn't bought a stinger in 18 years. The components aren't produced anymore. Raytheon started preparing for production last year due to an international order.

Are there any publicly documented incidents in which US forces have fired a Stinger (introduced in 1981) in anger? In all of the conflicts I can think of, the boots on the ground have basically never encountered low-flying enemy aircraft or helicopters. In all the incidents I can think of -- the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq 2003, even various smaller incidents -- the US Air Force and Navy have completely removed enemy air assets from the equation. Things may be starting to change with drones, but even then it's not clear that MANPADS are the weapon of choice there.

As far as I can tell, Stinger missiles have largely been donated to "friendly causes" (allied nations, and notably Afghanistan against the Soviets and Ukraine more recently). Not that our troops don't carry them, but running low at a time we were already looking to replace the platform is not an existential concern. Similarly for HIMARS: guided MLRS are cool and game-changing for Ukraine, but they aren't really the preferred way for American troops to call in precision bombardment like JDAMS or cruise missiles from high-flying bombers.

Kids are expensive, stressful, time consuming and have high variance.

Having kids, especially infants and toddlers, is distinctly type II fun: "miserable while it's happening, but fun in retrospect." Think skydiving or similar. IMO the availability of easy and effective family planning makes it really easy to look at that description and decide that misery doesn't sound fun, and hedonism seems like a better short-term choice. I think it's similar in that regard to, say, unhealthy-but-tasty food and living metabolically healthy.

I don't know that I consider birth control to be a net negative, but I can at least see how given the choice people might decide to not take the leap that turns out better primarily in hindsight. I would agree with other posters that this can probably be countered with a reasonably small amount of culture shifting to make child rearing and families higher status, and perhaps a bit more general encouragement to temporary discomfort that makes things better in the long run.

I would say that the overall experience has definitely been positive, but it also brings a lot of not-always-fun tasks like late-night doctor visits, dirty diapers, and scheduling parent-teacher conferences. Doing things together is lots of fun, as is watching them learn and grow, but I'm still learning to work with the way the interaction is almost entirely interrupt-driven and impossible to schedule ("I fell down, I need a band-aid right now!").

In blue spaces kids are a luxury good, for people both rich enough to afford them and attractive enough to bag a secure LTR. This is fucked and bad and doomed long term but it’s a pretty reasonable outcome if you understand some of the market forces.

People are willing to spend quite a bit on luxury goods provided they signal status. I don't think it's impossible that kids could be seen that way, but it's certainly not the case right now: IMO there's some lingering anti-natalism from a few decades of the environmental movement that defines children as "selfish." In a decade or two I could imagine the general sentiment shifting.

includes a list of ideologically affiliated subreddits

You missed a chance to list SneerClub (it made it on the diagram). I suppose this gives us license to tell them to Do Better when we see them around? (/s)

Yet, if you think about it, where else does light come from but heat? Things that are very cold give off no light, yet everything that emits light will also be hot.

I would observe how over the past few decades we've moved from domestic lighting based off the blackbody radiation of incandescent (hot) filaments to high-efficiency LEDs producing (blue or UV) monochromatic light based on the engineered semiconductor band gap, illuminating carefully designed phosphors to re-radiate pleasant spectra with maximal efficiency. These are much more power efficient than incandescent bulbs, and are observably less hot, even if the light itself will (subtly) warm that which it shines on.

I don't think one can avoid some metaphorical heat (excessive emotional valence) with the light of sober discussion, but we can certainly strive to be more efficient about it.

Art historically has a long tradition of pushing the boundaries of what can be considered "art". Duchamp's Fountain is probably the most notable example here.

Of course technology enabling new types of art is also a new trend: at times we've had crises about whether recorded music would displace musicians, or synthesizers would displace specific instrumentalists, or photography painters. In most cases the answer is "somewhat", and I expect AI art will probably be disruptive, but at the same time the authenticity of a human creator will probably remain the pinnacle of status in most cases.

The policy is surprisingly reasonable in the actual specifics. The policy is point is to et local prolice actually be able to interact with illegal immigrants to solve and prevent crime.

IMO those sorts of policies are defensible, but the broader "anti-immigration enforcement" sentiment (the bailey, as it were) includes state judges sneaking immigrants out literal back doors to avoid ICE custody and San Francisco trying to avoid the deportation of felons wanted on federal murder charges.

I'm not opposed to real immigration reform, but fighting over enforcement is, I think, a pretty bad look.

In my experience, the primary differences in hiring for defense versus general tech is that the defense hiring leads with "Are you a US citizen?", possibly followed by "Are you willing and able to acquire and maintain a clearance?". Civil hiring lacks a bona fide reason to ask about citizenship and tends instead to ask if you'll need a work visa: they don't want to know if you're a citizen or permanent resident (green card). In both cases anything beyond those questions is generally forbidden.

There are plenty of (American citizen) workers in defense with "foreign-sounding" names. The security process is rather opaque, but even naturalized citizens can do sensitive work. See the Lockheed pride socks meme if you think the hiring preferences aren't similar, although the resulting demographics are different largely because they've removed all green card and H1B applicants from the system.

That said, I've definitely seen cases where heuristics have been applied to double check whether, say, a candidate with a degree from a non-US institution correctly marked their visa or citizenship status.

I have been wanting to do an effort post on the Culture War clashes of yesteryear that have since fizzled for various reasons. This is a couple of good examples, to which I might add turn-of-the-century hysteria over carpal tunnel disabling knowledge workers at keyboards and file sharing vs. the RIAA and MPAA.

I'm curious if anyone has any other battles-gone-cold they can remember.

Carpal tunnel syndrome isn't culture war unless saying "I doubt that carpal tunnel syndrome is very common" is, not only thought to be wrong

This was specifically a reference to the battles over policies the late 2000 Clinton administration promulgated via OSHA, only to be reversed by the incoming Bush administration in 2001 [1] [2] [3]. In a quieter era, this was a reasonably sized political fight that was largely pushed aside by events in the fall of 2001.

Ultimately I feel like the Clinton policies (explicit focus on ergonomics) have largely won out on, if not by OSHA fiat, then economics: workplaces like assembly lines are typically designed to minimize short- and long-term injury risks and office workers can generally get standing desks and such. But we're not all using 2000s-vintage ergonomic keyboards either, nor are office workers on these newfangled "computers" getting benched with career-ending typing injuries regularly: rates of carpal tunnel have been largely flat.

I wouldn't say it's perfect, but "thinking people are human garbage is itself a human rights violation" is usually the train of thought I go with.

I would like to register a prediction that absolutely nothing will come out of any of these suits.

Honestly, this. If there's evidence of actual deception, maybe not ("want a flight to Massachusetts, near Boston?" is not technically wrong although misleading). If being dropped in Martha's Vinyard (not even in winter) is deemed a harm worthy of civil liability, surely some wiseass is going to cite that precedent on behalf of migrants claiming asylum who the feds dropped in (shudders) South Texas.