domain:doyourownresearch.substack.com
Owlify
19hr ago
It is being used to describe out of the box thinking in this case, as most people wouldn't consider stealing a scarf from a hotel in that manner.
For anyone who used it, was it any good, or was it just the usual heavy-ass create-react-app mess that required a modern browser and broadband connection to even run?
Edit: Interestingly it seems to be open source, and also seems to have been kind inactive since late 2024 even before any Dogeing may have taken place. I could imagine that this project was already on the way out since then. https://github.com/weather-gov/weather.gov/graphs/contributors
2D3D
19hr ago
I'm too lazy to dig deep so I'm gonna rely on the bigbrains here to ask: is it legal for such an open lottery system to have race clauses baked into it? Like, most babies born of 2 parents whose combined skin tone is or is below a certain reflectivity or some weird shit like that?
I ask because there have been similar legal challenges here in my neck of the woods to extremely patriarchal wills. A common issue used to be where an alleged deathbed conversion of the patriarch to islam (or a marriage cert found in Indonesia where underage prostitution is conducted under the guise of temporary marriages - 'convert' marry pump dump divorce in about 1 hour) invalidates previous wills which specifically state that no property can be disbursed to muslims. A new tactic gaining (weak) traction is that such wills are invalid because of their discriminatory nature against mixed marriages, but southeast asia doesn't really play that game. Does such stuff happen in the west?
phailyoor
19hr ago
Any decent store just has to accept that a small subset of customers are going to go hardcore and maximize value. They just have to make sure they can eat the losses and not end up making a Hoover Free Flights promotion.
When I shop at the local Safeway-Albertsons land it's not unusual to get over 50% savings over list price, and when going to McDonalds as a family we each need to order separately so we can all get a daily deal.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
20hr ago
I was at my local organic co-op today, and I discovered that they have, as is typical of hippy-dippy stores, a reusable bag policy. In this case, every reusable bag I use, up to four total bags, gets me a small discount.
Being the sort of person who posts on the Motte, I immediately thought of gaming this system by putting as few items as possible in each bag. Preferably, I would buy four items, put one item in each bag, walk the bags out to my car, deposit the items in a separate container, then go back inside and repeat the cycle as often as necessary to get everything I want and maximize the discount.
This is, of course, both strictly legal under the store’s very poorly written policy, and also going to get me banned in no time.
But it led me to think of the deeper issue. Many, perhaps all, policies and laws are prone to extreme lawyer-brain galactic thinking like this. Imagine that the store couldn’t just ban me, because I am a member of the store and they can’t just get rid of me, and they must also put in place a policy that is fair to every member of the store. So they start trying to specify the volume of bag that must be filled, the types and sizes of bags that are allowed, minimum item counts in each bag. Soon, cashiers are bogged down in the minutiae of various arcane bag to discount ratios, rather than just scanning items and making pleasant small talk. Everyone is worse off, and the only plausible escape is to eliminate the discount itself, thus taking away a benefit of being a store member and reducing the overall value of that status, causing long-term harm to the store’s “health,” as it were.
Fortunately for my local Hippy Mart, they can still keep a FAFO policy in place for the chronically politically diseased such as myself. Anyways, I was just thinking about this and the contrast with the American legal system, which would be obviously incapable of maintaining such a simple and poorly written policy for longer than a nanosecond or two.
meduka
20hr ago
The fallacy here is the assumption that in the counterfactual world where DOGE didn't cut these positions, the death toll would be (greatly?) reduced. The very blurb you quote suggests that in the best case a full time overnight forecaster provides a few minutes of heads-up via the emergency alert system. NOAA reports around 50-100 fatalities from tornados per year, with some outliers during extreme weather conditions. If we see an enduring spike in fatalities through 2025 and into 2026 and 2027, that would be evidence for your hypothesis. As of now, I'd say it's too early to tell.
How many deaths would there have been in Kentucky if there weren't Weather Service cuts? It seems impossible to know for sure. I couldn't find any information on whether an emergency alert was sent out in Kentucky (though I didn't look very hard) but if one wanted to make a case for these cut positions being important (rather than just accepting a statement from the Weather Service union) you'd want to dig up some data regarding how many tornados are "typically" caught -- and how quickly -- pre and post cuts to quantify the effectiveness of these local overnight forecaster positions.
I'm strongly anti-safetyist. The optimal number of yearly tornado deaths is not zero. The government could obviously reduce tornado deaths to zero if this outcome was prioritized at all costs. We acknowledge that there are diminishing returns and don't invest the resources to drive tornado deaths to zero. It seems extremely unlikely to me that the current resource distribution is optimal, though plausibly it's in a local minimum and moving out of it will cause some amount of pain.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
20hr ago
A: What evidence is there that any/some/all of the dead died because there was no overnight forecaster? I checked the stats for 2023, a good Biden year, and there were 87 dead from tornadoes that year, including 23 from a single storm. 27 doesn’t seem wildly out of line with those numbers.
B: Was the NWS mandated to cut permanent overnight forecasters, or did they choose to cut that position to save other preferred bureaucratic spending priorities, or did they just go straight to malicious compliance and make the worst possible cuts?
C: Did the former overnight forecaster just take a buyout, possibly? You can’t force people to stick around on the job, and I wouldn’t be surprised if NWS offices have gone without permanent forecasters for a while in the past.
D: How many NWS offices surround the Jackson office’s area of responsibility? While tornadoes are notoriously localized and unpredictable, if the permanent forecaster has been gone for longer than a week or so, it seems like any serious agency would have taken steps to get as much forecasting ability as possible from other supporting offices.
E: At a minimum, the following:
As the MAGA-rampage against science continues unabated, how many more will pay for the ignorance of this administration?
With an above-normal hurricane season starting in two week, how far will Americans let these threats to public safety go?
Does not strike me as the sort of phrasing used by someone who is simply expressing scientific concerns without fear or favor.
Gaashk
20hr ago
The whole thing seems very weird, probably fake, and not primarily about "agency." What kind of weather situation were they in where he was actually cold, not just making idle chatter, and a "nice scarf" was going to fix that? And then he just went around wearing some random woman's scarf the rest of the evening? It sounds funny, I guess they could have a good laugh over it? Definitely manic pixie dream girl vibes.
But, also, I've been confused about how "agency" is being used lately. Assertiveness? Willingness to take action? It seems kind of new to hear that discussed in terms of agency, but seems to have become a thing lately.
veqq
20hr ago
about National Weather Service cuts
Relatedly, the site rewrite's been put on ice: https://beta.weather.gov/
UwU
20hr ago
The second sentence doesn't strictly follow the first. Stealing from an out-group (e.g. the faceless forgetful hotel patron) is not an indication they'll do the same to an in-group. On the other hand, cheating is necessarily harming an in-group person (the romantic partner), and as the current romantic partner you should be worried.
Think of the "I against my brother; I and my brother against my cousin; I, my brother, and my cousin against the world" proverb.
zoink
21hr ago
Addendum: You never sit in the car because it’s too hot or too cold if a tire needs changing. But you also don't want to be a tough guy to the point of becoming a liability. Being prepared is a finer line, and you can definitely cross into being an overly equipped “EDC Boy Scout” dork.
A story: Late this winter, we went to a cabin with a group of friends. An admittedly complicated snowfall occurred the night before we were set to leave. A friend ended up putting his car in a ditch. Trying to be a “tough guy” (in reality, embarrassed and rushing), he refused to wear a jacket, attempting to dig out the car, hook up pull straps, and put on chains in just a t-shirt. He started shaking uncontrollably, his hands stopped working, and I had to yell at him to get back in his car to warm up. He then sat there as my wife and I did the grunt work to get his car to the highway.
zoink
21hr ago
There is little to be gained by a man expressing transient physical discomfort. If you have a reputation for toughness, you can express mild preferences in limited circumstances - rarely in the moment - and it must always be clear that you can perform when needed.
Tenaz
21hr ago
I hate to say it, but the "it's antisemitism" theory seems to have greater predictive power than many of its competing alternatives.
Nah, this is just the media and culture war riling people up, plus recency. You could argue that maybe media coverage is due to antisemitism.
TIRM
21hr ago
Something wrong with crime? Sorry, all the high agency people have simply moved to a higher income area.
I (we) cannot fix crime. We can flee it though. I do what I am capable of, not what is hypothetically possible if hard coordination problems were solved.
I really enjoyed Blue Prince (Blueprints... get it? get it? aha). If anything I would love to see more games like this despite its flaws. It took 8 years to create the interlocking lore and puzzles. Unfortunately this means we're unlike to see a puzzle game of this quality any time soon.
The game has some frustrating quality of life problems and grind related to getting the right combination of elements through RNG. The later is terrible when you want to test obscure theories of interactions between rooms and items, or worse, a particular reading of a possible clue. While up until the first 'ending' (which is were they roll the credits and probably marks around 30% of the games content) this isn't a huge problem as there are multiple leads to investigate on any given day. If you don't get the RNG for a particular combination of elements you are likely to have another that will allow you to make progression. Later on in the game progression really slows down while you wait for the correct RNG combination which is very frustrating.
For all the above, the game was like crack to me, particularly in the early game up until the first ending. I'm glad to see someone talking about it as I think it would be a good fit for a lot of the gamers on here.
Gaashk
21hr ago
I'll tell you what the real scissor statement part of that story is - I can't possibly have been the only guy to read this guy explain how he told his girlfriend he was cold and immediately think 'cuck' can I?
I wouldn't take it that far, but do also feel that stealing a scarf because your man is cold seems more snarky than caring. Could be in a fun, flirty way, it would depend on specifics.
If it's actually cold, because it's cold out and he isn't dressed warmly enough, go into the hotel and drink a coffee with him. A scarf won't help all that much. What, the hotel happened to have one of those enormous chunky knit wool scarves on hand that's kind of a long blanket? Really? If he's not particularly cold and is just saying stuff, the way everyone in Phoenix mentions that it's hot every day, then a scarf will also not help, there's nothing to be helped. I have a lot of scarves, and do like wearing them as wraps, but no man would be willing to do anything like that unironically.
EDIT: I no longer endorse this post. USA Today and NPR for Northern, Central and Eastern Kentucky have both run stories that confirm that the Jackson, Kentucky NWS office was staffed the night of the tornado:
Fahy said Jackson workers were called in May 16 work the overnight shift to coordinate with emergency management personnel and issue warnings throughout the night. The Jackson office had a full staff that he described as an “all-hands-on-deck” situation due to the extreme storm.
“The deaths were not attributable to the staffing cuts,” he said. “Everybody was there last night. We had a full team.”
In a statement, the weather service said the Jackson office had additional staffing and support from neighboring offices through the weekend.
As USA TODAY reported before the Kentucky storms, the weather service has had to scramble to cover vital shifts. For the first time in decades, not all forecast offices have “24/7” staffing, according to the weather service union.
I still believe it is irresponsible to leave offices unstaffed, even if there is some ability to move neighboring employees around when they're expecting storms, but this is much less bad than I initially believed. I think I'm going to take a break from the Motte for a bit. I do love this community, but I have not been doing a very good job contributing to it.
On May 15th, the New York Times ran a story about how DOGE cuts had left parts of Eastern Kentucky vulnerable while it was under moderate threats for extreme weather:
Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the union that represents Weather Service employees, said the office in Jackson, Ky., was one of four that no longer had a permanent overnight forecaster after hundreds of people left the agency as a result of cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, the initiative led by Elon Musk that is reshaping the federal bureaucracy. (emphasis mine)
This morning, May 17th, it became apparent that eastern Kentucky had been hit by an overnight tornado that killed dozens.
I was honestly speechless when I read that.
This is what London, Kentucky looks like after the tornado. To quote someone who put it much more eloquently than I can:
Of all the disasters I’ve studied, tornadoes scare me the most.
They come with little warning and can erase entire communities in minutes — even seconds.
There’s no four-day lead-up to prepare like we often have with major hurricanes, and the winds of these storms can far exceed the most violent tropical cyclones.
In those few moments before one hits, especially if you’re sleeping, you’re at the mercy of your local weather station.
If someone is watching, they can issue a warning in those critical minutes before it’s too late.
Those few minutes after an emergency alert is issued are the difference between life and death.
[...]
Tornado warnings were delayed because of reduced staff. Those critical moments — a midnight warning to your phone waking you up, giving you precious seconds to find shelter — came too late for some.
My political stance has been evolving, but I'd describe myself as a state capacity libertarian.
To me disaster preparedness and relief are obvious, bread and butter, parts of the federal government. Sure we do stupid, wasteful things like give people flood insurance that lets them build and rebuild houses in the same vulnerable spot over and over again, when we should probably just heavily incentivize them to rebuild in a less risky area. Sure, with any given disaster there's going to be criticisms about how Biden did this or Bush did that. But I've always felt mostly positive about my tax dollars that go to disaster relief and preparedness.
I've had a growing sense of unease over the last few months as I saw reports of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announcing Trump administration plans to end FEMA, and reports about National Weather Service cuts back in April. I'm gutted that the easy predictions of these moves leading to unnecessary deaths has come true.
A part of me had hoped that Trump and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency would cut a lot of genuinely unnecessary spending from the government. When it was drag shows in Ecuador, even I as a rather Trump-skeptical person could admit that even a broken clock is right twice a day. But it was also clear to me that they were cutting with a chainsaw, not a scalpel. The images of Elon waving a chainsaw at CPAC feel a lot more hollow now. The man has blood on his hands. 27 people are dead in Kentucky because DOGE and Trump thought that it was "more efficient" to just let people die, instead of keeping overnight forecasters on staff.
Back in 2020, FEMA estimated the value of a statistical life at $7,500,000. By that standard, when doing the cost-benefit analysis the government bean counters are supposed to value 27 deaths as a loss of $202.5 million. I wonder how much it costs the government to staff permanent overnight forecasters in eastern Kentucky?
Which social media do you trust, and for god's sake why?
That's not really an effective disarmament tactic for scissor statements anyway (which is another reason they're so effective), because it doesn't matter whether the story happened or not - nobody really gives a shit about that scarf or the hotel or whoever really owned the scarf, they care that there are other people talking about it who don't share their values and have the audacity to judge them despite being sick, perverted scarf stealers/opposed to manic pixie dream girls/insert-your-own-description,-I-can't-take-this-seriously.
I'll tell you what the real scissor statement part of that story is - I can't possibly have been the only guy to read this guy explain how he told his girlfriend he was cold and immediately think 'cuck' can I? Aww is the widdle man cold? Does he want some mittens for his fingies too? If it was really that cold you would only have to wait a few minutes for hypothermia to kick in, and then you'll feel warm again you bitch! It's a damn sight better than letting a woman see you being weak when you haven't even jizzed. That's the only time you should ever show a woman weakness - only after she's seen you bang can you let her see you whimper.
That's how it always starts, by the way, first they steal a scarf for you, next thing you are walking funny and telling people pegging can increase a couple's intimacy.
If it was me on an imaginary date with Agent Scarf Stealer I'd have autistically insisted on trying to get the exact scarf she left at the hotel, and thought the genius part was her suggestion that one scarf is much the same as another. I'm very used to quirky nonsense though, in my defence.
Edit: iprayiam, I should have guessed you'd tackle the real issue, high five! I swear your post wasn't there when I read this thread earlier though.
doglatine
22hr ago
But this is cheating for you, which is a little different. I can totally see the appeal of a Bonnie & Clyde romantic partnership where you places your mutual interest above other moral concerns. “Felt cute, might violate the Geneva convention later.”
FtttG
22hr ago
Whose coverage did you watch? We watched on ARD. I miss Terry Wogan. Tried Graham Norton on the BBC after Wogan died, Eurovision is gay enough without the extra help.
Just a YouTube livestream, but one of my friend's friends was this bitchy gay guy who had us falling about the place laughing with his snarky comments. It was almost like having our own personal Norton.
Greek performer appears on camera with her huge glasses
Guy: "She looks like she's dressed for the wedding of someone she doesn't like very much."
(on the Swiss singer) "She's hot by the standards of women who work in accounts receivable."
Israeli journalist appears onscreen to announce the results of the Israeli jury vote
Guy: "Who's this IDF slag?"
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
23hr ago
If you're prepared to go in and steal scarves, why not steal from a self-checkout machine? The corporation is not going to miss the $20. But when everyone does it, stores close and we have to go back to cashiers rather than an efficient, human-free experience.
Why not just torrent games for free or get repacks? I'm not totally innocent on this but it's still bad to do even if I'm tempted to say 'oh well the marginal cost of distribution is zero and i probably wasn't going to buy it anyway'. When everyone does it, all we get is AAA slop catering to people too stupid to torrent.
Consequentialism should consider the long-term consequences of behaviours.
AvocadoPanic
23hr ago
It's as if the vast majority of the voters aren't interested in attractive women. The Austrian homosexual hapa won. Hazel had joke during one of the set changes about the prevalence of homosexuals at Eurovision.
Whose coverage did you watch? We watched on ARD. I miss Terry Wogan. Tried Graham Norton on the BBC after Wogan died, Eurovision is gay enough without the extra help.
My wife was surprised by the seeming overperformance of Isreal. In her experience the majority of European homosexuals are pro-Palistine.
My favorite were the Icelandic boys. I enjoyed seeing Baby Lasagna again, I still think he was robbed last year.
anti_dan
23hr ago
Before getting to the stealing, I'm more stuck on my aesthetic distaste to the vignette of a man on an early date telling the woman he's cold, and her giving him an article of clothing to comfort him (among the more feminine articles to boot). It's too perfectly set up as a subverted cliche, that I am 50-50 (edit on reflection, 70:30) that it's made up. I suspect many if not most of the people defending it are doing so on those very aesthetic grounds, and it's not remotely about agency, morals, or consequentialism. This is basically a manic pixie dream girl scene that crossed with light 'gender swapped' tittilation.
I also am struggling to get past the cold man part of the story.
OP posted bait on X but all the stealing-defenders appear to be real people defending that position. I don't think they're all just trolls.
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