JulianRota
1yr ago
I might be in the minority, but I actually liked the third part of Seveneves. The characters aren't exactly impressive, and several aspects seemed rather dubious, but the tech was cool and I enjoyed the positive tone compared to how dark the depressing the first two parts are.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Haven't read Anathem, but I did really like Reamde, Seveneves, and Cryptonomicon.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Started reading Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock. It's considered the Global Warming/Climate Change themed one. I'm about 20% of the way through so far.
I generally enjoy his books and writing style, though this one feels a bit more, I guess, vague and hand-wavey than most so far. It has a few interesting concepts so far that I haven't heard of anywhere else, like the idea of "earthsuits" to allow marginal people to survive easily in extra-hot conditions. It has a some vague shadows of being woke-adjacent, though not in a preachy sense - a character is gay, but it's treated in a pretty matter of fact way and not really mentioned any more than any other characters' sexuality, rather than with paens to how awesome and brave they are.
So far, I'm enjoying it reasonably well, maybe like 6 out of 10, though I could see that swinging either way as I get further into the book.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I haven't seen anything I regard as solid for Telegram corporate providing significant special access to any authorities. There are a few articles with vague implications, but no actual results that would require such access. Most actual results I've seen seem to be from the authorities confiscating somebody's device and getting into Telegram etc on it, which is a problem, but not a Telegram problem.
A bit conspiratorial, but I have a feeling that the legacy media enjoys writing articles implying such things for Telegram specifically because they don't give any special access to anybody. They want people to believe they do and distrust them, so they use competitors such as Meta, Alphabet, etc which actually do give authorities the keys to the castle, who they don't write scary articles about.
It does do the unique username. I suppose if you already talk to a lot of IRL friends that expect it to be close to your real name it might be weird to need to join a bunch of super-anonymous groups. I guess you could create a new account, but I think it's tricky without a new phone number. I have written a few basic apps against it, as far as I can tell, the phone number truly isn't accessible if it's locked, but there is a unique integer user ID. But I'd stick with my point that's about the same anonymity level as any other platform.
JulianRota
1yr ago
In the US, unlike almost every other developed country, taxes aren’t (edit: universally) deducted by employers.
Every W2 employee has tax withholding which is usually pretty close to their actual owed taxes. The only way to avoid this is to be a contractor, in which case you will need to file payments of your estimated taxes as the year goes by.
You do engage with the income tax system annually, but that is to calculate your final actual taxes owed for the year. If that is less than you paid in via withholding, then you get a refund (this is the normal case), and if it is more, then you have to write a check for the remainder. If it is ever or routinely substantially more, perhaps due to side business activities or investments, then you may be required to make periodic payments of your estimated annual taxes before the end of the year. The IRS very much wants to be giving people a small but positive refund every year, and many people even consider it to be a "bonus" and plan around it.
Withholding is most definitely mandatory, and the IRS will be very unhappy with you if you try to dodge it or intentionally have less withheld than your expected taxes. I'm not sure where you got the idea that it isn't, but it's not true.
Universal Federal withholding was established in the US back in WWII, as a "temporary" measure to get the Feds money needed for the war effort sooner, and never removed. Some fiscal conservatives have advocated for removing it to actually force most Americans to write large checks every year, and thus save for them and make it more painfully obvious exactly how much they are paying. This is most likely a non-starter given how bad most people are at saving for such a high-magnitude future expense and how much effort would be needed to chase down everybody who accidentally or intentionally failed to save enough or otherwise dragged their feet. It's a pretty extreme position that nobody anywhere near actual power is prepared to touch. Pretty much everyone has since gotten in on the act of getting other entities than individuals to actually write the checks for tax payments, as it's much easier to coerce businesses than individuals.
JulianRota
1yr ago
What's non-anonymous about it? One setting change to hide your phone number, then you're exactly as anonymous as any other platform, including this one.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I have not owned a manual timepiece in quite a long time, so no
JulianRota
1yr ago
2 is easy, just plain no.
For 1, I've actually tried "street" Adderall, and it doesn't do that for me. (they are actual pills with the normal drug manufacturer markings, so fairly certain they're legit and not some weird random shit). It makes me feel a stimulant buzz and tends to make my head a little spinny; I feel like I have a harder time concentrating on things. I presume this means I do not actually have ADHD. I actually do like it sometimes, but for when I've drunk a lot and am starting to feel sleepy but want to stay up for a few more hours. In that case, it has less of the head-spinny effect and just makes me feel not tired anymore, also it wears off cleanly at a predictable time. I only use it like that once in a while, so I don't mind the higher prices of "street" pills. If I actually wanted to use it all the time, or at least semi-regularly for concentration etc, I'd probably try and get a diagnosis to get it cheaper and more conveniently.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Oh hey. I might have checked it out, but that was a little short notice, I'm just reading it now.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I suppose it's a bit semantic, but I would consider that part of my second way. Perhaps better classified, the first way is to operate primarily on logically persuading people to support your candidate versus the other based on proposed policies. The second way is to operate primarily on the enthusiasm of strongly partisan voters to actually turn out, which would include both getting your supporters to want to turn out and vote, as well as getting the other guy's supporters to sit out the election instead of voting.
JulianRota
1yr ago
There are 2 basic theories for how to win elections. One is that you win by convincing moderates who might plausibly vote either way to vote for your guy. The other is that you win by convincing your supporters to actually turn out and vote. Given the state of partisanship and the participation rate in even highly contentious elections with massive media attention, it seems likely that the second is the dominating factor in most elections. If something drains the enthusiasm of people who would have voted for you such that they fail to actually show up and vote, you can very much still lose, even if the other side is (in your opinion) objectively further from the point of view of the people who are sitting out.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I refuse to pay or watch ads for Google specifically, because they have shown themselves to be ideologically opposed to me and prepared to devote their resources to removing and hiding things I agree with and want to watch or read. I do have direct paid subscriptions to several creators via Patreon and a paid subscription to Nebula where I watch videos that are interesting and not ideologically opposed to me, as they give their creators a significant direct cut.
It's pretty challenging to consistently and definitively refuse to give any form of support to these massive monopolies that have shown their dedication to squashing my ideology, but I do what I can, and I feel no qualms about cheating them and taking advantage of them any way that is convenient.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I don't have any particular plan right now. I am firm on not caring to watch much youtube on any platform where I have to suffer through their full ads.
Things are weirdly erratic right now. I expect Youtube and uBlock Origin are actively fighting each other. Some devices can play video normally sometimes, and other times get the blocked video thing. Other devices it works fine every time. Firefox without being logged into Google and a bunch more ad and script blockers seems to work pretty consistently. I set up a redirector Chrome plugin to redirect youtube watch links to an invidious instance, which also seems to work pretty well but is a bit clunkier. Using yt-dlp to download videos and watch on desktop is also an option.
I also already got a paid subscription to Nebula, since I figure there's enough quality interesting content to be worth paying for, and reportedly a fair amount goes to the creators.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I believe Jim Crow segregation persisted for at least 50 years, depending on exactly how you define things. So you could almost certainly pick a number of years where this rule would define that as something we should just accept and move on from.
I suspect you didn't mean that, but then we have a much tricker problem about defining what constitutes ongoing oppressions versus historical grievances for the purpose of such a rule.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Maybe we're getting a little far off topic here, but this is touching on one of my bigger general concerns. Many of our problems do seem pretty big. To be specific, I'm talking about things like how much control near-monopoly tech companies and national mega-corps are coming to have over our lives, specifically retail and news and entertainment media, how much influence a united and stable Russia, China, etc are able to wield over world affairs, etc. I'm not so sure that a United States with the Federal gov effectively throttled and the many State governments ascendant would be better able to deal with these issues.
JulianRota
1yr ago
This actually feels pretty close to my thinking on it. Every time I start to think along the lines of, those Palestinians did get a pretty raw deal, getting booted off of their land effectively permanently mostly due to things that had nothing to do with them, they go and do something so freaking savage that it's hard to think anything but that the only thing they deserve is the same savagery pointed right back at them.
The left / blue team tries to excuse it with "that's how the oppressed naturally behave", to which I would reply that plenty of groups have managed to rebel against oppression without resorting to the laundry list of awful things the Palestinians have been known for.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Yes, I would think something like this is better. If you use any type of poison gas, after you deploy it, you will eventually have to clean it out, make it safe, and check out what's in there. A major pain in the ass and high risk of friendly casualties if you don't do it perfectly. If you use flammables or explosives, then you know it's safe after the stuff goes boom and it has a little time to cool down.
Goes along with the argument I read somewhere else - poison gas isn't used anymore because it isn't a very good weapon, not because its effects are so horrible or it's banned by treaty. It was probably possible to ban by treaty because it's not a very good weapon more than being horrible.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I actually asked it that way on purpose, hoping to cover both people who don't have one at all, and people who have one but don't carry it with them sometimes or often.
I do feel a little weird sometimes about seemingly needing to carry a smartphone everywhere, but it does do a really good job of replacing a bunch of other devices and tools.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Too far away. I looked it up for a previous comment on this thread.
Basically the published combat range of the aircraft in their inventory just barely reaches the closest border of Iran over the most direct possible route. Any worthwhile targets are even further. And those routes go over Jordan and Iraq, both of which are not particularly friendly to Israel. Any attempts to avoid them or fly evasive routes to be less visible to their air defense just makes the range problem even worse. The Israeli air force does have some tanker aircraft in inventory, but one or more midair refuelings in hostile airspace sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Missiles may be possible, but missiles without nukes just aren't very destructive and may not be worth the bother. A conventionally-armed missile is a strange enough thing to do that it's probably reasonable for any country to assume any medium range ballistic missile is nuclear and respond accordingly.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I do agree that when I'm out with anyone, I'll generally only use my phone to coordinate other people meeting up with us or find the next place to go, not to just chitchat with others or scroll social media
JulianRota
1yr ago
I don't understand? You asserted that "A wider middle eastern war means Israel will fall unless christian troops enter the fray". Exactly what war are you picturing that would plausibly lead to Israel falling without direct intervention? I mentioned several actual wars that happened. Multiple times, the nations surrounding Israel united to attack them, and each time, Israel did not fall. A number of other wars have also happened in the Middle East, none of which involved Israel at all or led to them falling.
I actually can't think of any war in the modern era in which any of the Arab nations displayed impressive offensive capability, as in assembling a large force and sending it outside their borders to capture foreign territory held by determined adversaries. Usually they only attack each other, and mostly bog down pretty quickly unless the region they're attacking basically gives up to them. They tend to smash their faces into a brick wall every time they try to attack territory held by Westernized forces.
Whether you or I think that the area is "ripe" for a united pan-Arab movement now, the fact is that it's been tried a bunch of times over the last century and failed every time. I don't see any reason to expect anything to be different now.
JulianRota
1yr ago
I understood them to only involve state power indirectly - a pogrom may be directly the action of independent individuals, but is only really possible if the proper state powers ignore them.
JulianRota
1yr ago
A wider middle eastern war means Israel will fall unless christian troops enter the fray.
Why would it mean that though? There have already been at least 3 wars (48, 67, 73) involving full-scale armies from multiple Arab nations attacking Israel, and they haven't fallen yet.
On paper, the Arab nations would appear to have ample forces to do the job. But historically, they've had trouble actually coordinating and committing to attacks. I see no reason to presume that that has changed. Syria and Egypt seem to have enough internal problems these days that it's hard to see them pulling off a large-scale offensive action.
JulianRota
1yr ago
Point of curiosity - how many people do not carry some sort of smartphone with them basically everywhere they go? Trying to focus on either you personally or somebody you personally know, not just speculating.
In my opinion, the first "good" / exciting part is the stolen credit card deal, which on my Kindle shows as page 67. It's a bit of a slowish start, with the exciting bits gradually getting more common as the story goes on. I wouldn't be surprised if some people would rather skim his long-winded explanations of things. But I think there's plenty of crazy and exciting stuff going on by the final third or so of the book.
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