ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
45m ago
I'd rather not play a game set in a parallel timeline where the Note 7 debacle put an end to the development of battery technology.
Some fun quotes regarding futuristic energy storage:
Equipment, robots, and vehicles often use standardized power supplies, known as power cells. All power cells are assumed to be compact and relatively inexpensive. They may be advanced electrical batteries, micro fuel cells, superconductor loops, or even more exotic power supplies.
GURPS High-Tech: Electricity and Electronics:
Supercapacitors (TL8; prototype 1954, working model 1978) are intermediate between capacitors and rechargeable batteries. They can be rated for size like [ordinary alkaline] batteries, but have the power output of batteries 10 times larger for a duration of 1 minute. They cost 20 times a comparably sized battery. The power cells in GURPS Ultra-Tech might be advanced supercapacitors.
A flywheel stores energy in dense material spinning extremely fast. A set of coils acts as a motor when power is fed in, speeding it up, or as a generator when power is taken out, slowing it down. Peak output lasts up to 2 minutes. The power cells in GURPS Ultra-Tech might be advanced flywheels.
Flywheels come in weights comparable to larger batteries, though volume is greater.
Medium. Stores 2/3 the energy of an M battery, but peak output is 60 times as high (equal to household power). ×100 cost.
Large. Stores as much energy as an L battery, but peak output is 100 times as high (equal to industrial power). ×500 cost.
Very Large. Stores as much energy as a VL battery, but peak output is 100 times as high. ×1250 cost.
Steel (TL7). Only available in L and VL. ×4.5 weight, ×1/3 cost.
Titanium (TL7). Only available in L and VL. ×4/3 energy, ×3 weight, ×2/3 cost.
Carbon Fiber Composite (TL8). Available in all sizes with statistics given above.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
59m ago
On the front pages of US-based news websites:
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
5hr ago
Fuller quote from article:
Spain's Interior Ministry said around 50,000 people had crossed the border since Thursday morning, and estimated that around 25,000 had already turned and gone back.
Juan Jesus Vivas, head of Ceuta's local government, said as many as 60,000 people had pushed across.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7hr ago
Quasimorphosis (no longer available)
I assume you mean Quasimorph.
Item 1 of 2
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In year 2011, a tourism-reliant village with fewer than 3000 inhabitants (though, hilariously, it officially is called a "city") enters into an agreement with a developer for the annexation and residential development of a 360-acre property in adjacent unincorporated land. The development agreement allows the developer to start building anytime within the next 25 years at its sole discretion (since "the parties understood that the housing market was slowly recovering from the 2008 financial crisis and that the market was not ready for the project").
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However, just eight years in, the village govt. expresses its opinion that the agreement that it signed is "outdated, one-sided, and incomplete", and starts ignoring its provisions (e. g., an expedited permit-approval process). The developer is forced to file three separate arbitration proceedings in order to counter the village govt.'s reluctance to abide by the agreement. In the third proceeding, it finally asks for damages. The arbitrator finds that the village govt. has "persistently breached the development agreement", and awards to the developer a "conservative damages calculation" of 22 M$ bearing interest of 12 %/a. (See document 81 page 6 for the arbitrator's decision, document 81 page 1 for the developer's viewpoint, and document 12 for the village govt.'s viewpoint.) The village is unable to satisfy even the interest payments on this penalty, and files for bankruptcy.
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The developer objects to the bankruptcy. It alleges that the village govt. did not file in good faith; rather, its problems arose entirely from its own bad-faith breach of the development agreement, and it made no attempt to reduce expenses or to increase revenues before filing for bankruptcy. However, the bankruptcy judge rejects the developer's arguments. The village govt. engaged in multiple months of good-faith mediation with the developer, and filed for bankruptcy only after the mediation failed and the developer garnished the village govt.'s bank accounts. The village govt.'s breach of contract does not necessarily imply bad faith. And the judge refuses to follow a decision from a different bankruptcy court under which govt. bankruptcy is a last resort, available only after the govt. has tried to fix its budget by implementing austerity measures (which indeed may lead only to a "death spiral" rather than to an improved financial position).
Item 2 of 2
Fun activity:
(1) Check a government GIS map and find a big rural parcel (1 2)
(2) Sketch it in your preferred CAD program at the correct scale
(3) In the sketched parcel, draw a residential subdivision compliant with the local government's subdivision and zoning codes (or just with the International Zoning Code)
You may or may not care to abide by the stormwater provisions in the subdivision code. For example:
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You probably have seen some giant grassy ponds (extended-detention basins) used to control stormwater runoff. Well, in New Jersey you aren't allowed to use those any longer, because they remove only 40–60 percent of the suspended solids (i. e., sediment). Are you allowed to use giant vegetated ponds (large-scale bioretention systems)? No. They can remove 80–90 percent of suspended solids, but they still aren't quite good enough to be usable without a variance, for reasons that are not clear to me from reading the linked documents. The only kind of pond you can use without getting a variance is a small vegetated pond (small-scale bioretention system), with maximum catchment area of 2.5 acres.
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In contrast, Pennsylvania lets you use the giant vegetated pond.
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Either way, the calculations don't seem that annoying. You just have to make the basin(s) big enough (maximum water depth after the 100-year storm is one foot in NJ or two feet in PA; maximum side slope is 1/4, to prevent errant vehicles from flipping) to hold all the water that the 100-year storm (adjusted to account for future climate change) will dump on the new impervious surfaces that you expect to build (and that you expect the homeowners to build)—say, one foot of rain (the 100-year storm), multiplied by the area of your roads and sidewalks plus X percent of the subdivided lots' area as prescribed by the zoning code's "maximum impervious coverage" figure (probably around 50 percent). If you take the worst-case scenario that the entire non-basin area of the parcel will be impervious, and if for simplicity you assume that the basin has vertical sides, then voila—in Pennsylvania the basin must occupy one-third of the parcel (2/3 of the parcel is impervious × 1 foot of water on the impervious area = 1/3 of the parcel is basin × 2 feet of water in the basin), while in New Jersey the basin must occupy one-half of the parcel (1/2 of the parcel is impervious × 1 foot of water on the impervious area = 1/2 of the parcel is basin × 1 feet of water in the basin). (Disclaimer: I probably have misinterpreted something here. I was a roadway engineer, not a hydrology engineer. Do not rely on these calculations to take out a small loan of one million dollars and buy a bunch of vacant land in Pennsylvania.)
Or you can just ignore the stormwater provisions, and draw your roads and lots with wild abandon. (Note, however, that trying to align multiple rows of blocks while abiding by the recommended block length of 300–600 feet can be more difficult than it appears.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
19hr ago
Two parents beat their two children, and tell the children to refrain from reporting the abuse. They are convicted of various state crimes—simple assault, aggravated assault, terroristic threats, endangering welfare of children, and corruption of minors. One of these things is not like the others! But the appeals panel affirms.
Here, [the parents] directed the children not to tell anyone about the criminal wrongs that [the parents] were inflicting upon them. Thus, [the parents] taught them to lie to individuals in positions of authority to protect [the parents]. In other words, they enlisted their victims' help in covering up their crimes by teaching the children to lie to and thereby disrespect their teachers, school nurses, and investigators of [the county govt].
Are there culture-war implications here? Can a parent be prosecuted under this statute for teaching his child that the government is not to be trusted or that polyamory is moral? According to one judge concurring in the majority's disposition of a prior case but not in its reasoning, the answer is "yes".
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In practice, the govt. has prosecuted people under this statute only when the corrupting behavior also constituted a separate crime—whether something major like statutory rape, or something minor like encouraging someone else's child to disobey his parents.
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But, in theory, there is nothing stopping the govt. from prosecuting under this statute based only on some idea that the defendant's noncriminal behavior tends to corrupt the child.
The interpretation endorsed by the majority is quite broad: "Actions that tend to corrupt the morals of a minor are those that would offend the common sense of the community and the sense of decency, propriety, and morality which most people entertain." I guess any actual prosecution for teaching libertarianism or polyamory to children would cause this interpretation to be narrowed under federal precedent. But it still seems like an interesting topic to be aware of.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
22hr ago
The underlying funds represent a broadly diversified basket of equity securities that seek to select or overweight securities that are expected to have higher returns or better risk characteristics than a passive, market-cap weighted index.
The fund’s emphasis [versus the index] on companies with the highest combined profitability and book-to-market characteristics, which outperformed, aided performance. Additionally, an underweight position versus the index in companies with the lowest profitability and book-to-market traits, which underperformed, also boosted relative performance.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
I thought CommonMark served that purpose (though no one implements it properly).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
In order to make an unordered list in Markdown, you have to (1) put a space after the hyphen at the start of each line and (2) press the Enter key twice, not just once, after each line.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
One of my biggest criticisms of HTML and Markdown is how it renders
h1and the other headings.
Personally, I like to make all the headings have the same font size, and to denote section/pseudo-section hierarchy with padding/border/margin on the left. Example (also using the nonstandard h element, but with the proper accessibility attributes added)
I really wish it could scale based on the depth of headings, such that a lone
h1rendered as the smallest heading, only getting larger when there were subheadings. Now I wonder whether CSS could do that...
You can do something like section:not(:has(h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)) h1{font-size:inherit;}. But Markdown doesn't have provisions for section elements.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
Hold on, isn't this just "involuntary or voluntary admission"?
No.
If for some reason this involves mundane outpatient interaction with a psychiatrist
Yes.
Applications for permits to purchase a handgun and for firearms purchaser identification cards shall be in the form prescribed by the superintendent and shall set forth the name, residence, place of business, age, date of birth, occupation, sex, any aliases or other names previously used by the applicant, gender, and physical description, including distinguishing physical characteristics, if any, of the applicant, and shall state
…
whether the applicant has ever been confined or committed to a mental institution or hospital for treatment or observation of a mental or psychiatric condition on a temporary, interim or permanent basis, giving the name and location of the institution or hospital and the dates of confinement or commitment,
whether the applicant has been attended, treated or observed by any doctor or psychiatrist or at any hospital or mental institution on an inpatient or outpatient basis for any mental or psychiatric condition, giving the name and location of the doctor, psychiatrist, hospital or institution and the dates of the occurrence,
…
For the purpose of complying with this subsection, the applicant shall waive any statutory or other right of confidentiality relating to institutional confinement. The application shall be signed by the applicant and shall contain as references the names and addresses of two reputable citizens personally acquainted with the applicant.
Filling out the form falsely is a strict-liability felony.
Any person who gives or causes to be given any false information, or signs a fictitious name or address, in applying for a firearms purchaser identification card, a permit to purchase a handgun, a permit to carry a handgun, a permit to possess a machine gun, a permit to possess an assault firearm, or in completing the certificate or any other instrument required by law in purchasing or otherwise acquiring delivery of any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machine gun, or assault firearm or any other firearm, is guilty of a crime of the third degree. [Note the lack of the word "knowingly" in this paragraph, even though it is present in other paragraphs of the same law.]
So, if you were "attended, treated, or observed" "for any mental or psychiatric condition", but you can't give the name, location, and date because you don't have the records, then you can't get a gun.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
You say this isn't an example of AI writing
I won't go so far as to directly accuse you of composing this essay wholly with AI
No, he said:
not one-shotted into an LLM
I endorse this essay
I worked on this.
I interpret those statements as meaning that the comment is wholly LLM-written, but the result of multiple rounds of "working on" prompts rather than a single "one-shot" prompt, especially since "endorsing" something is basically an explicit statement that the endorser didn't write it himself.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
American law enforcement is often described, lazily, as a single institution—"the police"—but it is actually two distinct institutions wearing similar uniforms. One, the sheriff, is nearly a thousand years old and answers to voters. The other, the municipal police department, is barely two hundred years old and answers to a mayor or city manager through an appointed chief.
Shouldn't state police be mentioned somewhere?
Because Atlanta is almost entirely incorporated territory, the Fulton County Sheriff's Office doesn't patrol city streets in the way a rural county sheriff would patrol unincorporated land. Instead, its role is concentrated in the classic sheriff functions inherited from the bailiff/shire-reeve tradition: running the Fulton County Jail, providing security for county courtrooms and judges, and handling warrant service and civil process.
It may be worth noting that this situation also prevails across the entirety of those states (including Massachusetts and New York) that have incorporated all (or almost all) of their land into municipal governments.
Possibly relevant is this court decision regarding whether New Jersey's governor has the power to temporarily, but unilaterally, take control of a municipal police department. The state supreme court dodged that general question because, after the takeover occurred, the legislature explicitly blessed this specific takeover without passing a law to govern the general case.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
I believe this "destroy records as part of storing them more efficiently" controversy already happened decades ago with microfilm, so Vinge was just calling back to that experience, not necessarily being prescient.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
A slightly more solid number (Ctrl-F "commercial value"): As of year 1998, only two percent of copyrights with age of 55–75 years retained any commercial value. That is, after 55 years, 98 percent of copyrighted works are forgotten and worthless.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
The 32-page legal decision
Court documents, including the full text of the judge's opinion
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
Grok tells me
Wikipedia, citing a paywalled scientific study from year 2019:
| Category | Proportion of Jews in Israel (%) |
|---|---|
| Mizrahi | 45 |
| Ashkenazi | 32 |
| Soviet | 12 |
| Beta Israel | 3 |
| Mix/other | 8 |
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
This fanfic was written and uploaded on the traditional homeland of the Anishinabe people.
This is cheating, though. Front matter (such as the copyright information, the dedication, or the summary on the front flap of the dust cover) is not part of the novel proper.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? Now you can just tell this person: "Sorry, this is a based and redpilled roleplaying group. Very stable geniuses only—no mentally-ill people allowed." Problem solved. (This specific wording is a joke, but the underlying meaning is not. However, I don't know whether the other members of your group would agree with this meaning.)
the question is how to handle it in such a way as to not scar this already likely friendless young adult
There's no saving that, and I'm not inclined to try.
These two statements seem contradictory. If the person is already scarred, why do you care so much?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
Source? I see a 2026 poll saying that people think cloning is immoral (64 percent for animals and 86 percent for humans), and a 2002 poll saying that people think cloning humans is possible (76 percent), but no poll saying that people think cloning is impossible or impractical due to accelerated aging.
Allegedly, GURPS Vehicles Third Edition will be published sometime soon—albeit independently by Pulver and with the serial numbers filed off, since Steve Jackson Games can't spare the money to edit it even though it's already largely complete.
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