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VoxelVexillologist

Multidimensional Radical Centrist

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joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC 

				
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VoxelVexillologist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Multidimensional Radical Centrist

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 64


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure! The universal requirement for ramp and elevator accessibility in most places is probably the biggest culprit.  It sounds great on paper, but in practice makes it really hard build new things outside of greenfield construction.


    

  • NYC is still trying to bring subway stations into compliance a generation later, and only plans to have 95% compliance by 2055.  It's also clearly hampering expansion: of 472 stations, none were built between 1989 (the ADA passed in 1990) and 2009.  Only five have been built post-ADA.  New York is perhaps the most obvious example, but I think any older places will have the same sorts of issues.
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  • As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it requires scope creep for modifications to non-compliant (often historic) structures that can make landlords put off nontrivial renovations.  ADA-compliant spaces are larger (wider bathroom stalls, wider hallways for wheelchairs to pass and turn, wider doorways, ramps) in ways that clearly add to the cost of a building -- this may be worth it, but it shouldn't be swept under the rug.
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  • It limits architectural freedom in subtle ways: split-level designs and walk-up apartments are hard to build.  There is a certain "planar-ness" to ADA designs that, while I suppose functional, feels a bit grating after you see it everywhere ("the bar area is two steps higher than the dance floor, letting you see out over it to the stage").
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The state of Texas is going to get its cut no matter which goods Amazon sells to Texans.




I'm old enough to remember a time before online retailers regularly collected sales taxes (apparently nationwide starting in 2017 after a SCOTUS decision).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Russia is sitting on the world's second most largest stockpile of nuclear weapons,




I'm pretty sure the (published) warhead counts actually have Russia with slightly more than the US, largely because of odd treaty wordings on specific delivery mechanisms.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings;




I am curious how you feel about the War of Northern Imperialism Civil War: the American founding documents talk a lot about "just consent of the governed" but when some of the (state governments as proxies for) regions decided they no longer consented, Lincoln sent in troops.  My own thoughts are complicated: I think the US is, for a variety of reasons (ending slavery, combined economic power) better off for the Union winning, but it does seem against the general principle of self-governance.  It's not even hard to find takes today justifying curtailing the rights of the region on the basis of the actions of their forefathers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I hope that hill isn't too poorly graded or sandy, then. :)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have come across some interesting "The ADA is one (of several) well-meaning laws that keep us from building cool stuff" takes that, while I still endorse the broad principle, have made me question some of its aspects.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the Dem response to immigration afterwards sure made it seem like they knew they fucked up and had dropped a grenade at their feet that they never intended.




When did you start seeing this response?  I don't remember any biting policy changes up until election season began in earnest.  I think there were some local actions in NY and Chicago (and memorably, Martha's Vineyard) to the migrant busing policies, but I will admit I don't follow politics that closely and I might have missed something.


The vibe I remember felt more like "all in on open borders and accepting any and all asylum claims, up until they saw how that polled with prospective voters 24 months later."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So of the parents can not agree on what should happen with the child, the child will be deprived of the right of an US custody court deciding its fate. That would be irreparable harm -- unless Trump is willing to send SEAL team to repatriate the child.




I think that this sort of irreparable harm is somewhat unavoidable in such circumstances.  Janet Reno was willing to send tactical border patrol agents to return a toddler from extended family in the US to his father in Cuba -- there is an iconic photo of a federal agent pointing an MP-5 at a screaming toddler in his family's arms.  Or that time the Carter administration allowed a Ukrainian teenager living in Chicago to claim asylum when his parents decided to move back to the Soviet Union.  All of those cases are, in some ways "irreparable harm".  But so is the reverse, and I'm not really sure how you'd consistently manage to avoid all such classes.  I'm open to suggestions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Ordering a batch of prototype pcbs (something no US manufacturer has capacity / interest in providing)? That’ll be $200 extra.




My man, are you not familiar with OSHPark and DigiKey Red?  The bare PCB options there are fairly cheap as long as you can use their standard stackups.


If you need something more complicated and/or populated, there are choices like Advanced Circuits, too.  At least in my area, if you look, there are commercial shops that can populate SMT/TH boards.  Admittedly, these might be more than $200 above the Shenzen costs today.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


What has Trump got the power to achieve?




I am tacitly of the opinion that some of the executive orders might actually remain in effect into the next term.  Affirmative action and friends (disparate impact, maybe) have long been unpopular (see California referendum results), but have hung on for half a century largely on bureaucratic inertia.  Those haven't gotten as much press as some of the more dramatic actions on immigration, and I think EOs to re-establish that might actually be a hard sell for a future administration.  Maybe also the Title IX sports changes.




He makes motions towards annexing Greenland and Canada but can't actually get it off the ground.




IMHO I think Trump might actually have been successful with Canada if he had pitched it differently: "I want to work with Justin to investigate forming a great, big, beautiful customs union and harmonization of laws -- we're gonna make trade so easy -- including a roadmap to a more formal union by 2050" sounds at least sellable.  "Fifty-first state" really dishonors Canada by putting it equal with, I dunno, Delaware and Rhode Island: Canada has a population around the size of California.


Neoliberals broadly like nice-sounding ideas like "unity" and EU-style bureaucracies, but specific details never sell well (where's that combined EU army?).  The only way that seems plausible is to sell the big picture, start the institutional inertia in motion, and let bureaucrats sort out the details down the road: Maybe the US decides to mark speed limits in metric.  Maybe it's just a treaty combining military commands and establishing EU-like residency and border rules.  What do we do with the existing national governance frameworks?


I'm not sure that I'd endorse the outcome if he had done that, but I don't have any particular animosity towards Canadians and am not gut-opposed to it either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In this hypothetical are you a state or federal judge?  Demanding the feds remand someone they've detained to state custody seems like something you at best could ask nicely for (see the precedent of Grant v. Lee on the subject).  I would generally expect them to agree for major crimes absent other major political concerns.  If federal (and assuming Article III), then no.  If federal and Article II, then I think it's at least unclear which parts of the executive can order which others around.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sexual norms in antiquity are a pretty complicated topic (and inconsistent over time too): I guess that I can't speak to the presence of children, but Roman parades with lots of phallic imagery are documented to have occured.  I believe it was Augustus who tried to steer the Roman upper classes toward chastity and fidelity in ways that would probably look "Christian" today but largely predate that Jesus character's major set pieces.  Not to mention ancient practices of homosexuality and acceptable age gaps there.


Honestly, I know just enough that I'd be interested to read a longer, more coherent take on the subject.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Article 25 allows publishing of print media in two or more language versions, one of which must be Ukrainian, provided that all language versions are identical in size, format and substance and are issued on the same day.




Doesn't Canada have similar laws regarding English and French?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


By default any arrangement which makes it easier for NATO to defend Ukraine from a Russian attack in future is something that could, in theory, make it easier for NATO to attack Russia from Ukrainian territory.




Why not just attack from NATO territory in Poland, Finland (only decided to forego neutrality because of the Ukraine invasion), or the Baltics?  They are closer to the presumable targets anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my darker moments, I wonder if "decolonization" in practice is somewhat genocidal.  For all the lofty "self governance" rhetoric, there are uncomfortably many examples, of which I'd consider the Subcontinent one (also Palestine, Rwanda, and many others), in which some of the first actions with newfound independence were to start killing and forcibly relocating each other.


Even some places that set out with lofty rhetoric (South Africa) haven't really been able to realize those stated values. I recognize that the colonial powers weren't exactly saints either, so I don't have a better suggestion.  Just the sad state of the world.  On the other hand, there are success stories: Singapore, for example.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Since the easiest people to be declared outlaws are the visa overstayers and people entering not at point of entry.




Yeah, adopting this at the present time would seem to be a huge loss for the left: it provides an obvious way to convincingly argue against birthright citizenship because "outlaw" seems to pretty clearly to imply "not subject to the jurisdiction thereof" even within the physical borders of the US.


In this case, I'd be pretty uncomfortable with it regardless.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Tinker Tuesday for April 22, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At the very basic end of things, it seems the easiest way to get started would be Docker or VMs.  It's maybe a bit dated at this point, but when I took a CS course on security quite a while back, Google's Gruyere ("Swiss cheese, get it?") was a good toy target application, and there are a number of easily-searchable links for getting that running locally.


I don't directly work in pentesting, so I can't really point you at specific resources, but I think like most folks in tech I've at least had to see the other side of things ("security policy requires these changes").  The concern I'd have for you is that cybersecurity is a rabbit hole both wide and deep: I doubt there are many folks that truly understand all the details of cryptography and implementations (Debian SSH key generation, Heartbleed, Shellshock) and hardware implementation details (Spectre, Meltdown, Rowhammer), or any of a number of other relevant details (rubber hoses).  If you just want to try out some fun SQL/JS injection attacks and browser development tools, Gruyere is probably a good starting point, but not being directly in the pentest side of the industry I can't speak to how useful those skills are these days given automated scanning tools for code.  I can tell you that I'm pretty careful to sanitize my inputs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In theory, can't the cardinals elect "any baptized male[1] Catholic"?  Seems unlikely, but we have a number of (supposed) candidates here.  Somehow "J.D. Vance" seems like a particularly memeable option, but I'm not sure offhand how to align that as a punchline to a joke.


[1]: It's distinctly apocryphal, but it feels necessary to mention "Pope Joan" and the infamous chair.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Remember, we're all being DEEPLY CONCERNED about slippery slope precedents - can you show us exactly where the judges have explicitly claimed that they CANNOT order the executive...




I think there's a decent argument to claim that Marbury v. Madison has been a slippery slope to such judicial overreach.  As evidence, I'd actually point to Roberts' preference for judicial restraint: he seems aware that there isn't an inherent limit on what powers the judicial branch would claim (who would overrule them?) as long as the other branches are keen to follow along.  The corollary there is that if the Court were ever to truly "reveal its power level," it might well find out it's not as high as it thinks it is.  I was listening to the Louisiana v. Callais oral arguments yesterday, and it seemed like there was an implicit awareness that redistricting precedent at least in theory allows the judiciary to destroy the districts of arbitrary members of Congress, and that it needs to balance its rulings WRT the Voting Rights Act (which are IMHO not sustainable as defined mathematically) and the states' inherent political powers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Presumably whatever incentives the mediators have available to them and care to use: adding or removing sanctions and further military aid to their counterparty.  "Come to the table, or we will make this more painful than your regime can bear" is a threat that I had assumed was implicitly levelled.  Whether it is or not seems less clear at the moment, but Ukraine-flagged warships (torpedo boats, as is tradition) harassing Russian shipping or naval assets outside the Black Sea with some degree of plausibly-deniable allied assistance.  Or actually biting sanctions on Russian energy exports.


These haven't happened yet, and may not be on the table, but it at least strikes me that they could be.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe I've just worked in small-medium, high-trust (engineering, office) workplaces, but most of the signs I've seen in bathrooms are about upcoming blood drives and security policies (beware phishing).  If I have seen such signs, they were at least not terribly memorable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for April 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your average fighter pilot has probably flown maybe a half dozen other aircraft types too: you don't go straight from a simulator into a jet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it's taken a firm stance that the court has no authority to compel the executive to return someone held by a foreign government.




This wouldn't be a sustainable precedent generally, though: if the judiciary can compel specific actions in international relations, even returning American citizens generally, how do you bound that power?  Should we have invaded Venezuela to free the Citgo Six?  Or Italy to free Amanda Knox?  Congress explicitly allowed the executive to invade The Netherlands in 2002 in such a hypothetical situation, so I don't think you can just wave off "by any means necessary, but not those means."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I feel like everyone arguing this is just treating "due process" as an incantation.




I'm fairly certain that this point "due process" has become "enough layers of review until my desired outcome is reached, and no more."  Which isn't to say that due process isn't a good idea generally, but maybe we need pre-commitment to what the process should be, like we've started registering scientific studies to prevent cherry-picking results.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sometimes you just want to identify as the Kool-Aid Man.