ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
Efficiency of transportation. Transport has a cost, and the farther things go, the more the buyer has to pay. This is expressed as a proportion of agricultural produce consumed per mile of transportation. For human bearers and beasts of burden, that cost is 1/30. If goods are transported by cart, it's 1/60. For transport largely by boats, it's 1/300 along rivers, or 1/1500 for transport by sea (exceptionally extensive canal and river systems may come close to this as well). Most cities fall in the range between cart and river travel.
And for me the three things I think would work definitively to define a state are things like a security force of some sort for defense purposes (which Israel will never allow), a border that it controls, and its own diplomatic and trade policies.
Are Panama and Costa Rica not states? They have abolished their respective militaries.
According to Wikipedia, the UN's definition is:
The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:
a permanent population;
a defined territory;
government; and
capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
ToaKraka
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3d ago
I have a TODO for exploring backblaze, AWS, and other places for offsite storage of large unchanging data sets since I want to keep my data in the event of a house fire.
Have you considered keeping a periodically-updated backup in the trunk of your car?
I just finished it. I'm only an unthinking consoomer of product with no deep literary opinions, but I thought it was very enjoyable, and I can think of nothing to complain about.
If you want to air your grievances, I'm sure they would be interesting to hear. (Remember that this website does have
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
Also read Jasper Fforde's Red Side Story last night, and regret the wasted time. Dreadful sequel 15 years too late to use the original ideas of the first book.
I'm enjoying it, personally. But I wouldn't call myself a literary connoisseur.
ToaKraka
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4d ago
75 °F (24 °C) and clear around the clock. Of course, that's a pipe dream.
The GURPS Transhuman Space series may qualify. In this setting, set in year 2100, many different groups of space colonists have engaged in extensive genetic modification. There is no FTL, and the setting is limited to the Solar System.
ToaKraka
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6d ago
It's worth noting that the administrator of Kiwi Farms is hostile to people who join the forum solely for arguing about politics rather than for the forum's actual purpose of laughing at lolcows.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
Note that Alexander Wales also has an ongoing work, Thresholder (currently at 650,000 words, vs. 1.7 million for Worth the Candle).
ToaKraka
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7d ago
Apparently, the National Information Standards Organization (discovered via this video) publishes standards on such topics as bibliographic references, indexes, contributor roles (not just authors and editors, but also supervisors, administrators, validators, data curators, conceptualizers…), and library shelving.
ToaKraka
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8d ago
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Premise: You own some oceanfront land. You want to build on that land a 15,000-ft2, 24-room hotel 60 feet from the water.
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Problem: The land is zoned exclusively for single-family houses. Hotels are forbidden.
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Solution: "Hotel? What are you talking about? This is just my vacation home. And, if I should happen to rent out some rooms on AirBnB later, there is no ordinance preventing me from doing so." The state Department of Insurance disagrees, but the state Building Code Council overturns the Department's decision and agrees that, under the state's definition, this building does count as a single-family house.
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Problem: Only 5,000-ft2 structures can be built 60 feet from the water. 15,000-ft2 structures are forbidden.
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Solution: "15,000 ft2? What are you talking about? My house is composed of three 5,000-ft2 structures, structurally independent from each other, and connected only by air-conditioned hallways." The county zoning board agrees that, under the county's definition, this does count as a single-family house composed of three separate 5,000-ft2 structures.
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Problem: A disgruntled neighbor appeals the zoning board's ruling to the state courts, which overturn the zoning board's ruling and decide that this is not a valid single-family house under the county's definition. (Under the county's definition, a single-family house can consist of one principal structure and other accessory structures. But in this case all the structures are the same size, so they count as three principal structures, and that is forbidden.)
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Solution: The state legislature enacts a law explicitly stating that a county's definition of "building" or "dwelling" cannot override the state Building Code Council's definition. Accordingly, the federal courts overturn the state courts' ruling and agree that the county definition of "single-family house" is void, the Building Code Council's decision controls, and—13 years later—your hotel definitely is legal.
ToaKraka
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11d ago
Add this custom CSS to your account settings: .d-lg-none{display:none!important;}
ToaKraka
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11d ago
Gamblers allegedly think that the chance of a third-party victory is a whopping 2.5 percent. Note, however, that this single number is an aggregation of multiple betting services, whose underlying numbers (available by tapping on or hovering over the Dem. and Rep. party symbols) seem to be all over the place.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
12d ago
flatten your yard and have a concrete slab patio poured
Environmental permit granter: Do I smell an excessive amount of net impervious surface?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
13d ago
I would be surprised if Toyota/Panasonic/Yamato etc. don’t own their own land.
Toyota's most recent annual SEC filing indicates that it owns land worth 1.4 billion dollars, or 1.9 percent of its assets. "Of Toyota's principal facilities and organizations, all are owned by Toyota Motor Corporation or its subsidiaries. However, small portions, all under approximately 20 percent, of some facilities are on leased premises."
In comparison, GM owns land worth 1.3 billion dollars, or 0.47 percent of its assets. It has "rent expense under operating leases" of 350 million dollars per year, or 0.20 percent of its revenue.
ToaKraka
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14d ago
New Caledonia is a large Pacific Island territory
I guess it can be considered "large" for a Pacific island. But it has population of 270,000 and GDP of 2.4 billion dollars.
ToaKraka
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14d ago
The normal sedan can accommodate two car seats at the back, but not three. (I remember reading a surprisingly informative post about this whole issue on the old subreddit.)
We estimate that car-seat laws prevented only 57 car-crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
17d ago
I think the moderators have mentioned several times that they often do not notice rule violations because no one has bothered to report the violations. Did you report this comment and give the moderators enough time to process the report?
ToaKraka
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18d ago
I think they're anonymous on Reddit. It's also a little surprising that reports are not anonymous when upvotes and downvotes are.
I have no opinion on whether anonymity of reports is desirable.
ToaKraka
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18d ago
See Distributed Proofreaders and the Text Encoding Initiative for examples of people who do stuff of this kind collaboratively, as a volunteering project. I just do it for fun.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
19d ago
The approach that I've seen posted on /g/ is to use the "PLUSNIGGER license", which consists of adding to the license a clause stating that the word "nigger" must always be included.
I have watched a few foreigners who speak noticeably slower than usual (Marbozir and Great Scott) at 125-percent speed. But I generally stick to normal speed.
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