domain:natesilver.net
gattsuru
2d ago
Trying to work my way through NoStarchPress's Computer Graphics from Scratch (caveat: got it deeply discounted during a Humble Bundle, definitely wouldn't pay full price). It's a little obnoxious because I've dabble enough in newer technologies that a lot of the early tutorials are annoyingly useless, but I'm also finding all the places I've missed conventions or misunderstood processes before.
faceh
2d ago
Gambling is very tricky for me because it doesn't usually create obvious externalities.
Other than being stuck in line while someone buys scratchoffs.
Its unclear what interest I have in whether someone is spending their money 'wisely' or not. There's an argument that someone who would gamble money away would probably do something else stupid with it, like play with options on Robinhood or fall for some crypto rugpulls, so really they might be better off giving up control of their money entirely.
But its increasingly clear to me that I don't WANT to live in a society where gambling is everywhere. I don't like the ads, I hate having the odds splayed across the screen constantly, I'm old enough to remember the time before this was ubiquitous, and sports gambling indeed had a sheen of shame on it.
The one time I went gambling in a Casino was a rush. I see why people get really into it, I felt an urge to return and try my luck for months afterwards.
The optimal amount of gambling in a society is (probably) not zero.
The compromise that seemed to mitigate the harms is to keep legal gambling relegated to certain geographical areas. This makes it easier to keep things restrained or dare I say 'regulated.'
Otherwise, every single business out there tries to inject some gambling aspect into their products and services to capture some of those sweet addict dollars.
And all THAT said, I'm also not in favor of having police raids on grandma for running a BINGO game out of her backyard.
charlesf
2d ago
I'm some places it already is illegal to sell cold beer for carry out. Indiana I believe, and maybe Oklahoma. Actually it looks like OK repealed it a few years ago. Some beer is also meant to be consumed at room temp, but the people that are into this type of beer are probably not drinking it in the car. Most of the degenerate alcoholics I've known, people who literally can't wait to get home and have to drink in the car, do not care in the least what the temperature is and have often also bought a half-pint which they downed in the parking lot before even getting back in the car.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2d ago
Are autoandrophiles even a thing?
They undoubtedly exist, although they’re quite rare, partially because paraphilias in general are rare in women.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
Fighting Hamas is a just war. Reprisals against civilians, on the other hand, are broadly prohibited. Since Hamas has a vested interest in entangling the two, it is very hard for Israel to keep its hands clean.
The strongest criticisms of Israel involve the parts of it which appear profoundly uninterested in doing so. There are more of these than I would like.
Regardless of intent, every dead civilian lets critics pattern-match to My Lai. That’s the kind of event which shaped the antiwar psyche.
wayfarer
2d ago
Offered, not gave. He also offered gold statues of himself and night clubs with Palestinian woman providing sexual services (see that Gaza strip AI video posted by Trump).
I'm on the boarder of the midwest/upper south, so there are some hispanics here but not a large fraction of the population. Pickup trucks, however, are extremely common and popular. Some of them are work trucks, though vans are more common as actual work vehicles. The overwhelming majority of pickup trucks on the road here (I'd estimate 80%+) are single passenger commuter vehicles. 99% of their drive time is to carry their driver to and from their job that doesn't require a truck at all, or running errands. Nothing has ever been, nor will ever be, transported in the (tiny) beds, which generally have a hard cover of some type so they don't need cleaned. Many of them boast considerable off-road capabilities yet will never have a single tire touch dirt, short of occasionally hopping a curb to get out of a small driveway or parking lot. All of my neighbors, the men anyway, drive one of these as their primary vehicle. If they do find themselves actually needing to haul something, the more well off actually buy a second, usually older, truck to use for that, or they have a trailer. Trailers are very common and popular; nothing really fits in the beds of these trucks anyway. They are essentially lifted SUVs with enormous engines with the rear storage area converted into a semblance of a truck bed that is never used. Decades ago this same demo (their parents and grandparents) would have driven Lincolns and Cadillac sedans. The interiors of these trucks often have the same luxury options as the current Lincoln/Caddy offerings. More offroad vehicles like jeeps and hummers are also popular with the younger men. These are slightly more likely to be used for their ostensible purpose, especially if they've aftermarket alterations, but I'd guess at least 50% of these vehicles are also single passenger commuter vehicles. The locals who are fans of offroading/mudding disparagingly refer to both types of vehicles as pavement princesses or mall prowlers. As mentioned down thread, all of these commuter trucks are in impeccable condition, regularly washed and kept away from any scenarios that might scratch or ding them in any way.
As to the question why? They are men, and men drive trucks. There isn't much more introspection than that. A non-trivial amount of women use pickups as their primary commuter vehicle too, but they also tend to prefer jeeps, or the jeep pickup, which I'm seeing more of, or just regular giant SUVs. Many of the wives of the men who own the giant commuter trucks near by me have nearly identical black Cadillac Escalades with the silver trim. I have a Lincoln Navigator personally, I think Ford makes better vehicles, at least right now. I also have a Nissan pick up that is used as a farm truck mostly, and looks like it.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2d ago
Kevin Spacey did this to both American Beauty and House of Cards for a lot of people pretty closely. So great analogy.
I haven’t read Ellison so I can’t really say, but it has consistently been true that among many artists of all types, suffering, restrictions and angst leads to great art (or at least, the reverse is true, conditioning on great art). The real question is, how often does art in general present actual worldviews rather than merely challenge them, or throw out fascinating ideas that we then grapple with and fill in ourselves? Quite often! I think that’s partially the point, that new ideas, perspectives, and filters can be intoxicating and intriguing. And honestly I view sci-fi writing as more art than science or engineering or something, despite the reputation and being more “cerebral” (not a bad thing). As visionary as art can often present, I think most art is actually overwhelmingly reactionary on both a personal and societal level. It’s just how art is. Once you see it you can’t unsee it, and it shows up everywhere.
So in that sense I do wonder if you put more expectations on his art than any art merits. At the same time I deeply sympathize and more specifically you might not be wrong (again never read him)
guajalote
2d ago
Christians generally believe humans have free will that enables them to act contrary to God's will. Those bad actions are still "part of God's plan" in the sense that he anticipates them and "plans around them" so to speak, but those sinful actions are "contrary to God's plan" in the sense that he does not want them to happen.
ZanarkandAbesFan
2d ago
I think a lot of the bias in the pro-Muslim direction is a lack of lived experience with this stuff.
That probably applies to zoomers, but I don't think it explains why the progressive movement (which is dominated by millenials) axiomatically favours Muslims over Jews. I'm pretty sure AOC remembers 9/11.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
2d ago
And with getting an audience when one does so. It’s probably worse when you’re competing for the attention of media executives with their own politics.
I don’t think that this is honestly much of a factor; my understanding is that Jennings has been very consistent and very vocal about his politics for many years before anyone was considering him for a major media role, and before those specific beliefs were fashionable. The guy genuinely is an old-guard Gen-X progressive, and I don’t see any evidence that he’s either played up or played down those opinions based on any mercenary career concerns. Nor do those politics appear to have had much bearing on his selection for the Jeopardy! hosting gig; he got the role because he was already an extremely well-known institution on the show, and because he genuinely earned it over a long period of time. That’d have been true whether or not his political commentary was frequent or sparse. (Although obviously his specific opinions didn’t actively harm him, which wouldn’t have been true if they’d been significantly right-of-center instead.)
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
wayfarer
2d ago
Yes, I know it does not exactly make sense whether you have this ritual step, but that is how it was treated for long time.
Vietnam war was weirder, if that is any help. For some bizarre reason USA decided to outright not attack SAM sites because Russian soldiers were shooting at them from there.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2d ago
My continual take away is that I don’t like war being called ethnic cleansing.
Yeah that’s one of the obnoxious aspects of the post-WW2 mythos.
Stop trying to guilt trip me into seeing one side or the other as intrinsically righteous. Everything has to be a “genocide” or an “ethnic cleansing”. Why can’t it just be a fight? Men fight with each other. Always has been always will be.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
2d ago
I think a lot of the bias in the pro-Muslim direction is a lack of lived experience with this stuff. If you’re a zoomer, you were a baby when 9-11 happened, and you didn’t actually see what the intifada did, or any of the ISIS beheadings or suicide bombings and IEDs in Iraq/Afghanistan. So the impression you’d get from the media is something Like “Muslims were sitting in Palestine, minding their own business when those colonialist Jews showed up and for no reason at all decided to require all kinds of security measures and put up walls.” No, every one of the security checkpoints was because of various jihad and intifada attacks against civilians.
I don’t think Israel is perfect here. The settler movement is making everything worse. Bombing hospitals is not a good thing to do. The list honestly goes beyond this as well.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
What happens if there is a conflict between them?
The linked PAPSS page mentions bylaws, but they do not appear to be posted publicly. Afreximbank's charter (art. 17) states that a dispute between the bank and a member is resolved by a vote of the shareholders (i. e., the members), while a dispute between the bank and a former member is resolved by arbitration.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
2d ago
...because (unlike Hanania) they are savvy enough to notice which way the wind is blowing and keep thier heads down.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
2d ago
Ethnic cleansing, as a distinct concept from genocide, has traditionally involved there being a territory where the population being cleansed is cleansed to. Thus far, Israel has not succeeded in finding such a territory.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
there has been a palpable increase in the number of questions related to black writers and activists,
Given the trajectory of many, many programs which don’t involve Mr. Jennings, it’s likely not his doing. Correlation, causation. Not that he has any reason to fight it, but if it makes you feel any better, you can probably blame faceless executives and market research.
It’s especially disheartening to know that a man with his depth of knowledge and clearly impressive mental faculties isn’t able to see the nuance around these issues
There’s, uh, a few conclusions that you could take from that.
But I think the set of (knowledgeable & impressive faculties & nuanced opinion & wanting to talk about it & visible) is vanishingly small. Having a complicated, technical opinion on the Current Thing is inversely correlated with wanting to blast that opinion on social media. And with getting an audience when one does so. It’s probably worse when you’re competing for the attention of media executives with their own politics.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
This is just a payment-processing system, not a whole new currency.
Yes, but if the processing system uses dollars and US banks (or banks that eventually connect to US banks) then US can control it. Dealing with a ton of different currency without having an intermediary one where you can align everything to the single common measure could be challenging...
PAPSS's governing council appears to be populated by the top officials of the central banks of its member countries.
Yes, of course, but what happens if there is a conflict between them? Say, one government has a lucrative trade in goods that are frowned upon by other governments, and wants to use this system to facilitate it? What if two members have a fight and try to block (or steal) each other's payments?
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
2d ago
as though they're still in charge of the party
Many are still in high positions in the party, you just don't hear about it.
Good points. In a further twist of irony Hanania himself seems to be more closely aligned with those "frogs and eggs on X" then anyone else and is trying to court the Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and David Brooks wing of "soft Republicans" as though they're still in charge of the party.
As @AlexanderTurok says below Hanania has completely failed to update his priors based on the changing situation.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
Like Hawaiian shirts? I knew I liked you …
Indeed. It's a pleasure to meet another gentleman of culture.
This particular shirt is of great sentimental value. I got a very nice photo taken in Thailand while wearing it, and I've taken good care of it ever since.
Funnily enough, it was in the bargain rack, and the brand I bought it from never released another of the same style that I liked nearly as much.
I mean, I’ve seen blacks and Hispanics at this point but I just didn’t know it was legal to wear such bright colors.
Tell me about it. You'd think Scotland was in mourning, the way the average person runs screaming from a dash of color. It's all black North Face puffers and drab brown coats. No wonder everyone is depressed.
Love your posts.
Thank you <3
E: as to Israel - I’ve noticed people attacks the weak. My opinion is state what you believe in situations that aren’t related to business. People don’t actually care … they’re just pretending.
In normal circumstances? I'd be happy to defend myself. In this scenario, I strongly value my relationship with my cousin and his girlfriend, soon to be fiancée, and I wasn't inclined to rock the boat. She did seem to care, certainly more than he did, I could tell she was getting worked up by my nonchalant attitude. Plus the UK's approach to free speech is... inadequate. A lot of my spicier takes are necessarily reserved for this site. What I'd give to be in the States instead.
There is a difference between men fighting one another (Hamas vs. IDF) and men fighting unarmed civilians (Hamas vs. Israelis; IDF vs. random Palestinians).
As much as I would prefer the former, it’s not on the table. Hamas can’t stop hiding behind civilians without getting slaughtered. Israel can’t stop killing civilians without giving Hamas opportunities to slaughter Israelis. Neither side is willing to let it “just be a fight.”
So yes, it’s teetering on the edge of ethnic cleansing. Not because of a psyop to claim righteousness, but because all the remaining options look an awful lot like killing noncombatants and driving them off.
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