jkf
3mo ago
Is that at all likely though? I think it's pretty clear (if not talked about much) that this is the case in North America -- but I thought the original migration path for Abos was pretty well established? (and very old)
jkf
3mo ago
If you look at the location of actual passable (sometimes) routes through the Arctic, Greenland is nowhere near them -- doesn't make sense, particularly not for China.
There's probably oil though -- not sure how exploitable it would be however.
jkf
3mo ago
68mm shell width x 113mm spindle length (square taper, JIS)
Did you, um, measure those things? I'm not saying the robot is wrong in this, but both of those could be measured precisely enough with a tape measure (or calipers if you've got em) to be pretty sure you're getting the right thing.
jkf
3mo ago
pets usually are timed to prevent puberty.
AFAIK this is another good example of medical veterinary misinformation, driven by the convenience and "we know what's best for you"-ness of the purveyors.
There's pretty solid studies that fixing a dog (particularly bitches) before canine puberty leads to lower lifespans and greater risk of various health problems at younger ages -- breeders who care will usually recommend a year +.
People who prioritize other stuff, such as puppy-millers (concerned that their customers will set up shop and compete) or SPCA spay/neuter all the things types (too many puppies, I guess?) will either demphasize this or outright lie about it -- because they know that if they let a puppy out out of their sight there's a good chance it never gets spayed, and might even reproduce. (horrors)
You can google right now and find all sorts of bullshit about how four months is Just Fine(tm) for the animals -- but it's really for the people.
jkf
3mo ago
Pretty clear that he meant 'territories' to mean the ROC, not the literal Canadian Territories -- and in the the ROC "Toronto" is pretty much synecdoche for "Southern Ontario" (pp. 12M). Add the St. Lawrence corridor of Quebec (to whom "Toronto" panders federally) and you are pushing 50% of the national pop -- not quite 60, but pretty close to all-powerful in terms of Parliamentary composition.
jkf
3mo ago
My kids are in high school, and they would know if 50%+ of the class were being spirited away to a special room as test-taking accommodation.
It does seem like the new policy (since I was in high school) is more accommodating in terms of retaking tests you've blown, and handing in homework late -- but AFAICT this applies to everybody, and isn't an obviously terrible idea.
jkf
3mo ago
Huh -- "come to BC" is all I can suggest then -- there's a certain amount of trans/FN pity indoctrination (which the kids mostly don't seem to be really buying), more seriously disabled kids per class than I'd like, and... that's about it.
A fourth grade teacher wanted to diagnose my son with ADD (we had none of it) but other than that I know of approximately 'accommodation' kids working the system as you describe.
Not a lot of immigrants in my (undisclosed) location, either.
jkf
3mo ago
Wow -- I guess I've seen aspects of this around my kids' school but this all sounds quite extreme -- are you back East somewhere? In suburban BC I would find all of this quite disturbing.
jkf
3mo ago
I am with you 100%, and I'm more thinking about chicks from the 1990s FFS -- I'm just saying that that particular haircut and that particular actress are... kind of ugly -- the dye doesn't really tip the scales one way or the other for me.
jkf
3mo ago
I’m guessing when the Boomers hit Social Security full-tilt
Aren't we getting kind of towards the tail end of Boomers hitting social security already? Birth year for full benefits seems to be 1958 -- which is well past peak Boomer, and roughly the year that birth rates started a rapid decline into GenX -- seems like a strong majority of the cohort is already collecting SS?
jkf
3mo ago
Yeah I'm unfamiliar with any of these properties and understood BigGuy to mean something more cyberpunk than 'mid-lesbo' -- like a Chelsea with some gel-work on top.
jkf
3mo ago
TBF those two words are very similar and easily confused if your brain happens to like... swap some letters around.
jkf
3mo ago
Just tell them that society needs at least a few writers and entertainers who aren't utter morons as well...
jkf
3mo ago
The ones who did badly and were put in the bottom track because they were rebellious or narrowly-focused and flourished once they got into a more open-ended environment.
Is this really a bad outcome though? If you manage to get every smart person into the white collar stream, you no longer have any smart blue collar workers to advance society in those areas.
jkf
3mo ago
I can see a high capacity rail line
You'd need pretty serious port infrastructure at either end for this -- there are ports there now so it's probably feasible, but I'll bet it would be expensive if you were going to handle significant volume.
jkf
3mo ago
If the same is true of Mennonites more broadly
I don't think it is -- I've contracted with them before in ways that required mutual trust, and I'm pretty sure that the carpenter ones don't require cash up front before they build you a house or whatever.
jkf
3mo ago
The not-particularly-strict Mennonites that I know seem to maintain the same sort of lifestyle when they start construction or other businesses -- I'm pretty sure it's mostly the church and community support. Whether they can maintain this is another story -- I don't really know any "urban Mennonites", or if that's even a thing.
jkf
3mo ago
If I were running Ford and trying to destroy Ford, I wouldn't start by cutting the cars everyone doesn't like. I would start by ending Mustang production, screwing up the engine and bed on the F150
Ford doesn't have a monopoly on violence though; in the government analogy, they just make everyone drive Escapes -- which makes people hate the Forderlords but it's not like they can go buy a Camaro instead.
Whereas if they quit making Escapes and nobody cares, it's a viable argument that Ford is wasting a lot of resources on things nobody likes, and further cuts should be NBD. (of course the plan breaks down when all the CUV engineers start writing articles about how many puppies will die if they are laid off)
jkf
3mo ago
In 1995 computers could barely play chess.
In 1995 computers could kick your ass in chess, unless you are a pretty good player who studied their algorithmic weaknesses -- indeed I'll bet my Vic-20 could kick your ass at chess in 1980. AIUI for a long time their improvements (including things like DeepBlue) were mostly driven by better compute and memory availability -- I guess there's some interesting parallels with neural networks there. But the thing about chess programs is that there's sort of a plateau -- you can only be so good at chess. AI takeoff theory hinges on this not being the case for general intelligence -- which I don't think has been adequately proven.
jkf
3mo ago
Probably not helpful per se, but I'm thinking of the oldish days in which mods were expected to put up with blunt-to-the-point-of-against-the-rules commentary on their decisions as part and parcel of the awesome power they wield. I'd probably need to go pretty far back on the reddit sub to find examples, and don't really know where the norm came from (LessWrong?) but it struck me as a pretty good norm. As with the "free-speech vs hate-speech" issue, "criticizing the mods is only allowed if you aren't a PITA about it" is not really a stable equilibrium.
jkf
3mo ago
the ankle-biting will stop. Now.
Clamping down on blunt feedback to the mods is a pretty serious change in norms around here, and a very negative development -- you should stop.
jkf
3mo ago
A touch cold-hearted, but sure -- assuming you accept that Russia is an implacable threat, and a hostile relationship is the only way forward. Which could be argued either way, but there's another problem:
Whether or not Ukraine has a shot at "winning" or regaining significant territory is irrelevant. Every day that the war continues is another day that the Russian military continues to deteriorate without any loss of American life
This part is only true until it isn't -- if Ukraine runs too short of bodies to hold the line at some point, there's a risk that Russia wins outright. Then we have an implacable enemy with a battlehardened (granted, drawn down some) armed force, a shiny feather in its cap, and a nice big buffer zone between us and its heartland.
Seems a little risky?
It really isn't -- look at a proper Northern projection, there's no reason to go anywhere near Greenland on the traditional passage. And that route (despite alarmism) is not reliably ice free even mid-summer -- if you are waiting for the actual polar icecap to go away, that seems like a much longer time horizon than I'd expect Trump to be considering. Not to mention that if you could sail right over the North Pole, Greenland would be quite irrelevant -- there's a lot of (potential) ocean up there, one could easily keep one's distance from any landmass at all.
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