domain:parrhesia.substack.com
quiet_NaN
1hr 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 %)
-
Two-story, standard: 1541 ft2 × (111.55 base + 3.01 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 196 k$ (+26 %)
-
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:
-
96 pages of uncomplicated per-square-foot prices, as demonstrated above (including materials, installation, and contractor's overhead and profit)
-
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)
-
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.)
-
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
2hr 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
2hr ago
Leave me out of this bleeding anus business 😤
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
2hr 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
3hr 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.
3hr 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.
Some of the really budget single ply stuff is somewhat similar to sand paper tbh, and given that he works for the NHS I wouldn't be surprised if he's encountered literally the worst toilet paper ever produced by humankind.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
3hr ago
Again completely agreed, it's weird how the USA seems to be that one single country in the world where the price you see on labels is not the price you pay.
Canada add GST (their equivalent of VAT) and provincial sales tax at the till in the same way as America.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
3hr ago
My understanding is that at the time the EUR was introduced in 2002, Germany still had sufficiently backward payments tech (for similar reasons to the US - basically a lot of small state-licensed banks and a culture that wanted to protect them against competition from large national banks with proper IT departments) that sometimes the only way to get a large transaction through on a same-day basis was to use a wad of 1000 DM notes. The 500 EUR note was a like-for-like replacement, and was no longer needed once Germany developed a nationwide electronic payments system that actually worked.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
3hr ago
The 100k only existed as a gold certificate (and therefore illegal for private individuals to hold during the New Deal era when private holdings of gold were restricted). The 500, 1k, 5k and 10k existed in all forms of US currency including legal tender Federal Reserve Notes ("green" money). The original Binion's Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas (home of the WSOP) had a tourist attraction where you could be photographed in front of a million dollars in 10k bills.
As with all obsolete US currency, the large denomination notes are still legal money and a regulated bank should accept them for deposit at face value. They are rare enough that the numismatic value normally exceeds the face value, so this never happens.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
3hr ago
What parts of a whole one thinks relevant is a subjective question, though, not "completely separate realities". Someone who thinks toast colour is the most important thing in the world can still agree with you on whether the toaster's plugged in.
I'm not going to say there aren't true delusions on that side of the fence, though. I'd argue that the overuse of "fascist" is to some extent a differing definition of the term rather than a disagreement on ground truth... but only to an extent.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
4hr ago
I remember that incident, but the guy has multiple blogs jam-packed with nuanced takes on a million different topics. It's like calling the Austrian mustache man a "noted vegetarian."
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
4hr ago
American reactions are pretty bizarre, I don't understand how these people take themselves seriously. Take this «House Select Committee on the […] CCP»:
“China’s action today is an economic declaration of war against the United States and a slap in the face to President Trump amid his efforts to fight for a level-playing field. China has fired a loaded gun at the American economy, seeking to cut off critical minerals used to make the semiconductors that power the American military, economy, and devices we use every day including cars, phones, computers, and TVs. Every American will be negatively affected by China’s action, and that’s why we must address America’s vulnerabilities and build our own leverage against China. We should immediately pass my legislation to end preferential trade treatment for China, build a resilient resource reserve of critical minerals, secure American research and campuses from Chinese influence, and strangle China’s technology sector with export controls instead of selling it advanced chips. Xi Jinping only respects strength and I am ready to work with patriotic business leaders, our congressional leadership, and the Trump Administration to show China that its belligerent trade actions will be met with serious efforts to protect the American people, secure our supply chains, and cut off the flow of U.S. capital and technology into China."
Man, why the pearl-clutching? Why the shocked Pikachu face? It's unbecoming. This is explicitly a retaliation for your ongoing and already very impactful attempts to throttle their tech sector, you've declared this war many years ago when you sentenced Huawei to death. Moreover the fact that they'll eventually be in a position to retaliate via REE dependence has been known for well over a decade, and there's been a warning shot in Japan over Senkaku. You chose this route, your team was consistently rejecting all offers of deescalation because you believed to have escalation dominance. So own it. The extent of third-worldist hypocrisy is breathtaking:
China’s new rare earth export controls prove one thing: Beijing will weaponize any leverage it has.
America needs a new normal—not tit-for-tat.
We must strategically decouple and throttle the PRC tech sector before it’s too late. 🧵
Chinese export controls are obviously tit-for-tat for US export controls, so by new normal they basically mean unrestricted always-defect economic warfare. It seems that the US isn't really capable of negotiating, the notion that you can't always bully your way to an objective is alien to these folks (we've already seen this with Bessent's "China has revealed itself as a bad actor"). There's the assumption that the US (or at least "with allies") necessarily possesses some hidden strength that can be activated to indignantly reject the adversary's offer.
Well, maybe there is. I'm optimistic that out-of-China production can be scaled up in a matter of years, if no deal is made. Primarily China intends to cripple defense applications, and frankly how can you object to that, this idea «greedy communists will sell us the materiel to shoot them with» has always been risible. They are also likely going to suppress the planned reindustrialization and (very dubious) robotic labor revolution in the US. All of that «just» reduces CAGR in a wide range of industries for the next 3-7 years, while Chinese physical productive capacity keeps growing exponentially. The demand for chips, though, will definitely be met. In the meantime, the US will have to capitalize even harder on its software/AI advantage. We'll see which is more important.
Corvos
5hr ago
Also a 100,000 dollar bill, again for use between major banks only. Private handling of one was illegal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-hundred-thousand-dollar_bill
cjet79
5hr ago
Nah, he hated central banks and had a huge wheel of cheese in the Whitehouse on his inauguration. One of the coolest presidents.
My aunt just used a rolled up newspaper applied to the nose for a mild negative reinforcement, equivalent to the dope slap. But dogs are social animals, they’re as motivated by disapproval as much or more than pain. “BAD DOG” in the right tone of voice is usually all you need, I think.
ControlsFreak
5hr ago
Sure, it is not absurd to have a perfectly inelastic supply curve, in theory. Presumably, you'd still have a downward-sloping demand curve and an equilibrium price, yes? Or are you wanting to posit a perfectly inelastic demand curve, too? Honestly, I wouldn't know what to say other than, "Wow, such theory," because yes, I'm pretty sure it is trending toward absurd to think that either of these is actually the reality in the low-pay labor market... and it gets more and more absurd to think that both are the reality.
Which brings me back to... anyone got any evidence that this theoretical edge case is actually the case in reality?
Lizzardspawn
5hr ago
You are doing something very wrong. Or you have bought sandpaper from the hardware store by mistake.
conoclast
5hr ago
There is something comical to me about this having 0 points on this site, to me it's a well intentioned post and title and yet it will never work (perhaps that is simply my view however). I would posit that this is even more general where leftism used to be tightly linked with class and freedom of speech and now is the thing that has been most "poisoned" over the past decade, and previous people who held that label have the poisoned choice of abandoning it and making it seem less sane or trying to market a new term. There is also a clash between purist-types who would advocate freedom of speech despite a large coalition who had no respect for it for years and (I don't know) realistic/pragmatic types who I would not even say it would be hypocritical to want revenge/retaliation instead.
Whenever there is a drift of terminology from a core useful idea (like what has happened to "freedom of speech") I often meditate on whether others believed the original idea at all. It feels a bit bleak to think of it that way, though.
Lizzardspawn
5hr ago
There is almost no big USA company that has not some DoD contracts.
conoclast
6hr ago
Not exactly right-wing but agree on what the video is communicating, and on "wanting to become violent is the right and natural reaction" jives with me, though I probably do not feel it as viscerally as you mention. I guess I could see myself 'relaxing' to this video in the background, in the "holy shit yes there's someone who agrees that this is clearly insane" viewpoint.
Bartender_Venator
6hr ago
Very Roman of you!
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?
More options
Context Copy link