domain:lesswrong.com
Pulpachair
1d ago
Social autoimmune disorder
Death by a holier than thousand cuts
Snitches need witches
Ouroboros to death
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
1d ago
Another incident of political violence happened on Sunday. A man attempted to bomb members of the Supreme Court while they attended a traditional start-of-term Mass at St. Matthews Cathedral in DC. We can quibble a bit about his motives, but it's being reported that his manifesto included animosity towards the Supreme Court, Catholics, Jews and ICE.
Now, you may be wondering if I posted this in the wrong thread, but I did not because this plot was so utterly fucking stupid and inept that I'm not even mad about it. It's just hilarious from start to finish.
The Gang Bombs the Supreme Court
Louis Geri of New Jersey, on the morning of Sunday October 5th, set up a tent outside the cathedral, because he was already banned from the cathedral. I have never heard of someone being banned from a cathedral, and can't find any reporting about why he was banned, but I maintain high hopes that the story is delightfully stupid.
The police, attempting to clear the area ahead of a mass that was to be attended by sitting SC justices, told Geri he had to leave and remove his tent. Geri replied, “You might want to stay back and call the federales, I have explosives.” Quoting that article,
The affidavit said the officer notified a bomb technician with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Bomb Squad of Geri’s actions, and they approached him together. After the bomb technician told Geri that he needed to move because of a special event, he said, “I’m aware of that.”
The affidavit said Geri then threatened to test an explosive in the street.
“Do you want me to throw one out, I’ll test one out in the street? I have a hundred plus of them,” he said.
After being told he would be removed against his will, Geri said, “Several of your people are gonna die from one of these.”
Geri later handed the bomb technician a manifesto consisting of nine pages torn from a notebook with the title “Written Negotiations for the Avoidance of Destruction of Property via Detonation of Explosives," according to the affidavit.
A review of the manifesto “revealed his significant animosity towards the Catholic church, members of the Jewish faith, members of SCOTUS and ICE/ ICE facilities,” the affidavit said.
From another article:
The sergeant opened the tent flap fully after noticing a butane lighter and another object in his hand, which outraged Geri, who then reached into a bag and told her, “All right, if you want to do it, we’ll do it now.”
He proceeded to pull out multiple capped vials containing yellow liquid with explosives taped to them and told her to “step away or there’s going to be deaths.” Police retreated and formed a perimeter.
He was handcuffed after a brief tussle shortly afterward when he got out of the tent to urinate on some trees.
Friends, this is some actual Charlie Day level shit right here. "Officer- no, officer, you can't arrest me! I called time out pee break! You can't- you can't arrest a guy after he calls pee break! What am I supposed to pee in my tent?"
He had "200" "explosive devices", but many of them were just fireworks he rolled in thermite, and others were just vials of nitro rubber-banded to what I'm guessing were the most ghetto detonators ever built.
I am just in awe of this mans dedication to executive disfunction. I honestly think I could have planned, built and executed a better attack when I was twelve. Pitting Geri against the DC Metropolitan police is just unfair; as a foe, he's more in the range of being an antagonist for a Wolf Scout den. But that would cause it's own nightmare scenario, because Geri is a sex offender:
Geri was at a Scottsdale doughnut shop in May 2021 when a woman and her daughter, 4, noticed he was standing in line behind them with his genitals exposed, according to court documents.
The woman asked Geri why he was exposed and Geri told her that she “can’t tell (him) how to dress,” court documents said.
Geri left the shop and walked down Hayden Road with his boxer shorts tucked underneath his exposed testicles, said court documents.
An officer, responding to complaints, arrested Geri, according to court documents.
Geri, who represented himself at trial, admitted he did expose himself but said he did not do so with the intention of offending anyone, court documents said. He said his intention was to “exercise a perceived freedom of attire,” according to court documents.
Geri was convicted by a jury in September 2021 of two counts of indecent exposure, with one of those being a felony because it involved a child, court documents said. He was sentenced to three years of probation.
Geri appealed his conviction, again representing himself, saying Arizona had no law against public nudity and that being nude was a constitutional right, according to court documents. The Arizona Court of Appeals rejected his argument and upheld his convictions in June 2022.
Again, not even mad, this guy is just amazing.
ChickenOverlord
1d ago
I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but when I lived in the Czech Republic their TP felt like sandpaper. American TP, even the cheaper stuff, is consistently nicer. Only the super cheap one ply stuff used in public restrooms in the US is comparable in awfulness to what I experienced of European TP.
pigeonburger
1d ago
It's very rare that I would ever say that, but the meth user seems to have been more than reasonable there.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
Man, I remember when I was trying to give blood one time, but I was dehydrated so my veins kept collapsing. I think they might have tried 3 times before they said I simply cannot give blood that day. You'd think it wouldn't be that bad, but for whatever reason the relatively minor pain inflicted on my arm left me woozy, nauseous and I'd broke into a cold sweat. They wouldn't let me leave until I'd recovered. There is some kind of extra shit going on when it comes to your veins.
Okay, so because blacks have turned Detroit, once one of the finest cities in the world, into a dirty, disorganized, and violent shithole, therefore illegals don't also have the effect of making places dirty, disorganized and violent (and foreign)?
Like because "deport illegals" isn't an answer to every problem which results in dirty, disorganized, and violent cities, therefore it's never an answer to any problem?
This isn't a strong argument.
Especially why expect that when the most desirable cities to live in are the ones with the most foreigners?
it's odd to imply because the nice parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens exist with a relatively small number of illegals and the enormous pile of money that is NYC exists (i.e., the reason it's a "desirable city"), therefore the dirty, disorganized, violent, and low-trust neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, and increasingly the Bronx where the bulk of the illegals actually live can just be waved away
I've corrected you twice around my use of the word "illegals" and "ethnic" as opposed to "foreign." "Foreign-born," i.e., "foreigner," is perhaps the worst category for this discussion because it includes vastly different groups which are not interchangeable. Your repeated attempts to make that category the topic of discussion despite my repeated corrections just muddies the waters and is dishonest.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Data work doesn't really count either, of course: it's too close to science, and science as a concept is feminine and obviously not technical.
Especially computer science! Felt really awkward being the only guy in a lecture with 400 people. But it got better when I studied physics, there were typically a few other men in the room.
Meredith is obviously a crazy person, but to give the devil his due, she's not seriously suggesting this; she's claiming this is the attitude of tech people.
professorgerm
found a needlessly pedantic hill to die on
1d ago
It's kind of impressive how thoroughly captured 'decentralized' social media is.
If someone says they're on Mastodon or Bluesky, it reveals way more about their personality and ideology than FB, Twitter, Threads, Tikitok, etc.
Shrike
1d ago
I suspect this will make it harder, not easier, for the Chinese to enforce the rule, unless they actually intend to cut all trade of rare earth with the US (which is not what they are saying, as I understand it).
Either way, if the US wants to get stuff, and the Chinese are Serious About It, they probably won't go to the Chinese and say "hi yes we want to put these rare earths in our stealth bombers" they will use third party cut-outs in other nations, just like they did the last time the US needed rare metals from its main geopolitical rival/Communist totalitarian enemy.
faceh
1d ago
I think a lot of witches would love to take up residence there for the laughs, but I'd readily admit they'd probably get up to such powerful dark witchcraft that it would be justifiable to ban or otherwise limit their reach.
But pretty much the witch hunters got bored with no witches to kill and started hunting each other.
There MUST be a term or idea for this (other than a "Purity Spiral") where a bunch of hardened witch hunters finally form their ideal social order where the greatest crime is mere suspicion of witchhood, then for want of actual witches they start slinging accusations at each other b/c they can't break the witch-hunt itch.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
Europe probably not a great place to start.
By far the best locations within western civilisation for this kind of business are the empty bits of the western US and the Australian Outback.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
1d ago
I mean, economic Armageddon doesn't imply that Chinese assets will do great. And in fact they're doing poorly, this is a lose-lose move. I'd be investing into… idk, India?
Botond173
1d ago
Also, judging by Wikipedia, it was not even in the US that Coleman gained fame for herself but in Europe.
aaa
1d ago
The number of married men with children that eventually go gay say this is at the very least not universal.
AmericanSaxeCoburgGothic
Happy to be here! Goal is to post the most exclamation points.
1d ago
Can we avoid the headline hyperbole endemic to other forums?
China has nuclear weapons, so describing something as choosing the 'nuclear option' for them seems more appropriate for something involving thermonuclear devices or policy. If the news is so monumental, I think instead state what it entails and let it stand on its own.
If you really think this is economic Armageddon, how have you reacted? How you divested from all non-Chinese investments and strongly advised your family to do the same? Have you bought real-estate in Shenzhen?
quiet_NaN
1d ago
But "sit here for hours and never move from this exact spot" is antithetical to their nature, and the 10,000 years of jobs they've done for us thus far.
Agreed. I think another aspect is the hypocrisy of it. Using pain to condition a working dog who has a job like herding is one thing. But this dog's job is literally "be in the video stream and look friend-shaped, so that viewers will continue to watch". It is very much unsurprising that people have an emotional reaction to the dog getting shocked.
An officer finds a woman asleep in her still-running car in a parking lot. When roused, the woman appears to be intoxicated, and admits that she used methamphetamine 16 hours ago. The officer arrests her and takes her to a hospital for a blood test.
At the hospital, the woman consents to the blood test. However, after four failed attempts to draw blood, she withdraws consent due to the pain. The officer gets a warrant and the woman cooperates with a fifth, nonconsensual attempt to draw blood, but that attempt also fails. (Some cursory searching indicates that (according to various reputable-looking sources, including this paywalled standard) the normal maximum number of attempts is three.) The woman refuses to cooperate with any further attempted blood draws. She offers to take a urine test, but the officer doesn't take her up on that offer.
The woman is convicted of driving while intoxicated (sentence six months of jail with the possibility of parole after three days) and obstruction of justice (sentence two years of probation concurrent with the jail time; the appeals panel notes that this appears to make no sense). However, the appeals panel vacates the obstruction conviction (and remands for resentencing).
Norris did not commit an unlawful act concurrent with, physically interfere with, or attempt to thwart the investigation at the outset by refusing to cooperate with the police's effort to execute a valid search warrant. Instead, Norris complied with the police officer's investigation until the point that the multiple failed blood-draw attempts became painful and, it appears by any reasonable and common-sense standard, futile. Under these circumstances, we believe: (1) the statute does not compel a person subject to a DUI blood draw to submit to an unreasonable number of attempted blood draws, as was the case here; and, more importantly, (2) a defendant's refusal to cooperate after five failed attempts does not prove her intention to obstruct the trooper from obtaining a blood sample.
RSMeans is an authoritative source of cost-estimation data for construction contractors in the US (and Canada). The current residential dataset costs about 0.5 k$/a in paper or 1 k$/a online. However, a paper copy for year 2019—just before the pandemic produced a paradigm shift in construction costs—can be purchased for just 25 dollars. Even if such an old version cannot be used for current cost estimates, it still is interesting to look at for comparison purposes.
For example: Let's say I want to build a house for seven occupants. I have three designs.
-
One-story: 1182 ft2, three bedroom+bathroom suites
-
1.5-story (finished attic under steep roof): 1560 ft2, one bedroom+bathroom suite on floor 1, two bedroom+bathroom suites on floor 2
-
Two-story: 1541 ft2, one bathroom on floor 1, three bedroom+bathroom suites on floor 2
The book indicates that the second story of the two-story design can be built in three different ways—above ground (standard), below ground (finished basement), or halfway below ground (bi-level). That yields five different cost estimates.
-
One-story: 1182 ft2 × (115.45 base* + 4.95 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 2 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 155 k$
-
1.5-story: 1560 ft2 × (111.3 base + 3.69 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 2 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 192 k$ (+24 %)
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Two-story, standard: 1541 ft2 × (111.55 base + 3.01 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 196 k$ (+26 %)
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Two-story, finished basement: 770 ft2** × (135.5 base + 31.7 for finished basement + 4.95 for air conditioning***) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 152 k$ (−2 %)
-
Two-story, bi-level: 1541 ft2 × (103.25 base + 3.01 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 183 k$ (+18 %)
So, according to this dataset, moving all the bedrooms into the basement has approximately the same cost as keeping them on the ground floor. (Beyond cost considerations, having a smaller footprint on the plan view may free up space under the "maximum impervious coverage" prescribed by the local zoning or environmental regulations, while sticking to a single story may be preferable from a long-term "aging in place" perspective. But cost still is an important factor that one should consider.)
Of course, the highly simplified numbers demonstrated above are open to question. (Does it really make sense that putting the bedroom floor halfway below ground is significantly more expensive than putting it all the way below ground?) But the book is divided into four main sections:
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96 pages of uncomplicated per-square-foot prices, as demonstrated above (including materials, installation, and contractor's overhead and profit)
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186 pages of moderately complicated per-assembly prices (cost per yd3 of excavation, per ft2 of 2×6 wall, per water heater, etc.; including materials and installation)
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384 pages of very complicated per-unit prices (cost per ft of 2″×4″ stud, per ft2 of sheathing, per yd3 of concrete, per acre of topographical survey, etc.)
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82 pages of reference: equipment-rental costs, crew listings (e. g., a topographical-survey crew consists of a chief, an instrument man, one or two rod men, and an electronic level, for 954–1232 $/d if employed or 1550–2008 $/d if subcontracted), location factors (e. g., multiply prices for materials and installation by 1.21 in Newark, NJ, or by 0.92 in Wilkes-Barre, PA), reference tables (state sales tax rates, state workers' compensation insurance rates, typical architectural fees, etc.), estimating forms
So, a dilettante who doesn't trust the per-square-foot prices can dig deeper into the per-assembly prices, and a true contractor can use the per-unit prices. I'm too lazy to go any further here, though.
*The base $/ft2 number is taken from a list of numbers that decrease as area increases—e. g., from 150.15 $/ft2 at 600 ft2 to 82.2 $/ft2 at 3200 ft2. This list can be approximated with a quadratic equation in a spreadsheet—e. g., 28.55 $/ft2 + 3052 $/ft ÷ √(area) − 1482 $ ÷ area—but I have not done that in this example. There are separate lists based on quality (economy, average, custom, luxury), story count (1-story, 1.5-story, 2-story, 2.5-story, 3-story, bi-level, tri-level), and material (wood studs + wood siding, wood studs + brick veneer, wood studs + stone veneer, painted concrete block, solid brick, solid stone).
**The book's estimating procedure is based on the non-basement living area, even if the basement is finished.
***The book does not give a separate number for adding air conditioning to the finished basement. If I naively double the number that it gives for adding air conditioning to the non-basement living area, the final cost is 156 k$ (+1 %).
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
I prefer the coins simply because most of the times im using a dollar is in a vending machine because a coke or bag of chips is more than a dollar. And really I think bills should be reserved for denominations of money that would buy more than mere snacks.
TowardsPanna
1d ago
Leave me out of this bleeding anus business 😤
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
They exist elsewhere on the planet. It’s not like it’s impossible. Furthermore, the long term benefits of getting REE and bringing home the manufacturing of chips especially for defense are getting those critical components out from under the thumb of a geopolitical rival, creating jobs that would be decent paying manufacturing jobs, creating an industry with the potential for export. Those are not trivial wins, especially if China decides to wield its power in ways we oppose. If China makes a play for Taiwan, do you really think they’ll continue to sell us the material, let alone the chips themselves that we’d use to defeat them? Would any sane person in the Cold War feel comfortable sourcing critical components from Eastern Europe? That’s pretty much where we are, hoping that China will continue to sell us weapons that they know in a hot war we’re going to use on them.
Botond173
1d ago
Was he a bad president in the sense that he was guilty of the grave moral failing of racism or in the sense that his actions sabotaged the interests and conditions of the nation? Also, in what sense of the word was his racism seen as severe?
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
About 80% of $100 bills are outside the US. It isn't clear whether they are being used by crooks or as a bullion-equivalent by normies who don't trust their local currencies.
Based on these stats that works out as about $1.5 trillion of Benjamins held outside the US (15 billion notes), representing an interest-free loan to USG that covers a few percent of the national debt.
I guess your calculations are just for fun? What kind of living situation are you envisioning where such high density is required, but you are able to get what look like relatively modest building costs?
In an modest sized city or inner suburb of a larger city 2-1/2 level town homes or even 5-over-1 stumpies seems like the more common solution to medium density moderate cost housing. In exurbs or rural areas pre-fab is more typical of small home lower cost housing. To make new construction marketable, you would be talking about like factors of 2-3x on square footage for anything that would actually sell to a seven person household market.
The HVAC costs also look suspect for meeting current ASHRAE guidelines for 7 occupants. To have decent air quality for seven people in a house that small you are talking about 4-5x the total HVAC cost you have estimated here. Probably a dedicated enthalpy recovery ventilator, dehumidifier, and roughly 2x sized HVAC unit than would normally be used for a 1200 ft2 house. You also would need to scale up other mechanicals if you are going to house seven, like electrical service, hot water heater, sound isolation, etc. Square footage also need to be allocated for mechanicals if you assume you are occupying the basement and/or attic. If ducting and plumbing is going to be run between floors, you also need to a assume extra cost for engineered open web flooring trusses. That or oversized basement walls so you can drop the ceiling, again additional cost over the per ft2 pricing for typical construction used here.
Is the idea two parents and five kids? A decent number of municipalities wouldn't even allow seven non-related people to occupy a single family residence. I know people do it, but asking three kids to share a 10x10 room is a lot by modern American standards. There aren't that many people who want to actually live out Little House on the Prairie anymore. More power to you if you're serious about raising five kids, that's truely excptional in this era.
Even people who are into smaller houses for efficiency/environmental reason like the "pretty good house" people are talking about:
You're talking about 1182 ft2 for 7 inhabitants!
For your two-story finished basement example, probably a reverse living layout makes sense. Don't forget each bedroom would then require an escape well then though, which will substantially increase basement construction costs. That's a lot of extra form and mason work. I wouldn't be surprised by a $30k delta on cost even without the escape wells. For basements you have the extra concrete yardage of the basement walls including structural considerations for the extra back-fill pressure, extra excavation and haul away work, workers now have to set up ladders or scaffolding to get into the hole, extra below ground rated waterproofing, extra below ground rated insulation, extra water mitigation measures (you're closer to the water table), extra radon mitigation measures (you're closer to bedrock), etc, etc. Like the size of excavator the contractor will have to use is easily 2x the cost of ownership to the contractor.
Edit: I see you're estimate was that a finished basement is cheaper than the split level. This is entirely down to your assumption that you can halve the footprint square-footage. Practically speaking, if you are going to use a basement for bedrooms you should assume only 1/2 of the building footprint is usable in the basement for that kind of purpose. You're going to need redundant sump-pump wells if you are going to be putting finished bedroom space down there to start. The costs also obviously don't just scale, but have at least a constant component. Like if a contractor is going to haul a medium sized excavator out to a job site you're going to pay for at least a whole day regardless of the square-footage of the hole they are digging.
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