Lost_Geometer
No bio...
User ID: 1246
Lost_Geometer
3mo ago
You're claiming that the traders mentioned in the previous post were giving away money? If so, could you elaborate on what you think the cause of error was, since I rather like it when non-me people distribute free cash.
Lost_Geometer
3mo ago
Those words mean something to some of us...
Something indeed, and apparently something different to you than what they meant to the people who wrote them.
Lost_Geometer
3mo ago
Yes, to retain the spirit of freedom of speech there needs to be some sort of balancing. As you suggest, giving full government control to corporate speech seems wrong, but so does treating, say, Exxon-Mobil as if they were a biological citizen in that regard. I don't think the law is written here -- at the time of founding corporations were rare and presumably the framers would likely have little issue with restricting their rights. In that case history and tradition reasoning sends the issue to the legislature, though other types of interpretation leave roles for the courts.
Lost_Geometer
4mo ago
The court took it upon itself to write a much broader opinion than was necessary to decide the case, and it's this opinion that the people object to. I don't care to defend the FEC's original position, but I don't think it's as obviously wrong as you suggest -- the movie was allegedly long-form campaign ad, and that is a fact that could be tried by a jury if needed.
You ask:
If you are so worried about for-profit corporations buying elections, why not pass a law that is narrowly-tailored to prevent just that, without going after someone who creates a kickstarter for their latest documentary "Trump: the Orange Menace"?
This is exactly the type of thing that the decision prevents. In fact, the kickstarter would have been strongly protected already as private speech. Corporations, as creatures of the state, should be able to have their speech limited by the state, which was the law prior to CU v. FEC.
Lost_Geometer
6mo ago
There is a motte and bailey between real past and possible future vote fraud. A common reading of "Go after voter fraud" would be that such fraud actually is happening in sufficient quantity to merit pursuit.
Lost_Geometer
6mo ago
athletic / athleisure brands no longer use scenes of competitive dominance in their marketing.
Neat observation. I see there's a preponderance of ads not showing competition. Did they ever market victory though? For essentially their entire market, competitive dominance is kayfabe. Sure, you might have a collection of medals or team victories, but that's only because of the competition structure that allows you to compare yourself to a pool of people that are similarly mediocre. If the elite show up you'd quickly see that you barely play the same sport. Worse, for things like long distance running in a populous area, actually winning any event is a 1 in 1000 thing. At best, you're fighting to beat the fucker 10 feet in front of you.
Lost_Geometer
6mo ago
Support for Palestine maps cleanly into opposition against western govts/institutions that clearly do not support the palestinian cause, mainly because the Palestinians themselves keep saying they want Hamas.
We don't see the same people being against the Western-institution-led Ukraine war, for example. If anything, Ukraine skepticism is male coded.
Also, as a minor point, Hamas was allegedly unpopular even in Gaza before October 7. Presumably they remain so today, except in an enemy-of-my-enemy way. On the other hand, support for killing Jews is widespread, though how much sounds hard to measure. For a while it was a common sophistry on NPR, that because Gazans don't much like Hamas they condemn O7. But there are a lot of folks who oppose Hamas, and think attacking Israel was the best thing they ever did. I don't know when or why this story became less popular.
Lost_Geometer
6mo ago
Given a choice between the story and the film, though, the story wins.
Lost_Geometer
6mo ago
As far as I've seen commercial storage targets shorter duration, less than a day, so I don't really have a source for how the duration scaling works. The limit is where the footprint is dictated by the storage of redox active material. Large tanks are a bit squat, but still contain enormous volumes reasonably compactly.
Lost_Geometer
6mo ago
I do Python (and could use of job, if you want to get your forum-nepotism on). Python comes with a bunch of footguns, in that you can make the language behave unexpected ways by, for instance, executing arbitrary code at places like member or index accesses, have completely divergent function behavior depending on argument count and type, or change the behavior of existing objects (almost) arbitrarily at runtime. The art of Python programming is to use these features, with documentation, when appropriate but no more. These issues probably play out a bit differently depending on team and codebase size.
All the usual advice about factoring code into small pieces through narrow interfaces stands in any language.
Lost_Geometer
7mo ago
Half of the year with the surpluses we could split corundum into al and oxidize, in the winter burn it as thermite.
Not having run the numbers I rather like this solution. We need aluminum anyway, so surplus production isn't as big an issue. Moreover Al is about as ideal a long term energy storage medium as exists -- it's abundant, extraordinarily energy dense by both weight and volume, and safe-ish to handle. Getting power out can likely use existing thermal technology on a large scale, and possibly electrochemical means on a small scale.
Lost_Geometer
7mo ago
Methane from hydrogen is actually medium efficient -- apparently up to 80% if you use archea. Hydrogen from water is another 75% though, so together it's far worse than, say, flow cells. But in a world where power assumed to be cheap, but long term storage and transport expensive, it becomes very viable.
Lost_Geometer
7mo ago
Could you share some details? From where I sit it's hard to estimate the land requirements for electrochemical storage because there is so little market for multi-day systems. In particular, long term storage should depend on available volume, not area.
Lost_Geometer
10mo ago
I hardly ever have the resources to participate here, so one can rightly criticize for lack of standing. That said, as a regular lurker I'm pleased overall with the moderation -- it's the best I've seen.
On the topic of bans for longstanding posters, though, I agree that long duration (> 2d) bans should be reserved for those who act primarily in bad faith. I don't mind @HlynkaCG being sent to the kennel for a day, but I'd be sad to see him forced out.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
Damn, finally somewhere I belong.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
The alcohol example may be illuminating: note that the counterfactuals have different forms. In the alcohol case, the hypotheses apply to alcohol as a whole, whereas in the prostitution one they only apply to a specific worker. If I told you (a teetotaler) that my mate Paul drinks a fifth every day, has the liver of a man half his age, and actually drives better drunk, would that change your mind on the merits of drink? Now, I may well be imputing an argument that Murphy would not support and did not speak to. One can charitably assume that both speakers abbreviate the rigor of their arguments, and attempt to beat steelmen out of the plowshares (?) they provide.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
Judging just by the quotes I don't find the Destiny/Murphy example convincing. In particular it's not clear who's employing pretextual arguments (both?).
Murphy gives an example of an (alleged) harm that she claims accompanies the sex industry. Destiny responds by proposing a situation where the harm does not occur. But that does not address the argument against prostitution as a whole -- if the industry is necessarily accompanied by harm, you can be against it as a whole, and if you're against it as a whole then it's common to be against it in every case, if only because blanket rules are less corruptible than arbitrarily large decision trees. After all, almost every "unethical" behavior has some corner case where it's actually a good choice, does that invalidate the concept? Destiny's argument reminds me of politicians who talk endlessly about the advantages of clean coal, only to build more of the dirty kind.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
I'm had success with some relatively non-specific musculoskeletal stuff with targeted exercise and weekly rapamycin. I have strong inflammatory tendencies and family history, but no diagnosed disorder. Also psychotherapy helped my general improvement, so maybe that too.
Assuming your responses to LDN and keto weren't psychologically mediated (a big possibility -- many of these problems have a psychological component) then rapamycin could help you. It's not an unusually dangerous drug, but not 100% safe either, so ideally you would find an experienced doctor to prescribe and monitor treatment.
For autoimmune, some people respond to heat: get your core temperature to 102F for a few minutes every few days. This is supposedly safe-ish, though didn't work for me. Again, the standard of care involves medical guidance.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
Some adaptations come quickly -- the soreness in particular should improve over the next weeks. On the other hand, at 10 sessions a week even experienced folks can easily outstrip their recovery capacity. To push that kind of volume you need to keep most of the workouts easy and monitor for signs of injury or over training. Bad sleep is one of those. It's been a while since I was 23 but I'd suggest cutting your schedule in half and building up slowly as you learn to listen to your body.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
Exactly. It should be a very powerful argument, because preservation of life is a central social value. Like any powerful tool, it must be guarded against abuse.
Even killing someone, ordinarily one of the most forbidden actions available, is often accepted under such circumstances. But we attempt to prevent abuse by some combination of conditions that the threat be, for example, immanent, articulable, and clear to a reasonable person.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
GBH is certainly relevant to the conversation, but the central point was limited to the statement "we were scared for our lives", so to that end focusing only on those killed is indeed appropriate. Danger of grievous bodily harm and danger of death ought to correlate very well though.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
People have fears disproportionate to actual threats all the time. For example, some people won't go to the beach because they're convinced sharks will eat them. And when they're reported to fear for their life when a wave breaks over their feet, we acknowledge that, but with a footnote that the fear is irrational, and sharks aren't really a danger of much magnitude in that situation.
There is an urgent societal need to (as much as possible) ground such feelings in reality, in part because mortal danger justifies a lot of otherwise forbidden behavior. One's dog phobia, for example, does not justify shooting your neighbor's pet when it barks.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
That the risk is small doesn't matter when there is no reason why anyone should tolerate being exposed to it in the first place
Agreed. My issue is with the casual use of "fearing for ones life", which cheapens and reduces our ability to del with what should be very serious issues. In the case at hand, it seems reasonable for the passengers to have restrained Neely, as some violence was arguably reasonably anticipated from him. Shooting him, for example, would not have been justified though, and we should, IMO, calibrate our language to maintain respect for human life.
Lost_Geometer
1yr ago
[ @The_Nybbler makes similar points ]
To clarify, can you answer 2 questions?
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How common are killings in similar circumstances -- a single, unarmed individual kills complete strangers on a modestly crowded bus/train after exhibiting unfocussed threatening behaviour?
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In light of your answer to (1), and the unfortunate common presence of disturbed individuals on public transit, how do you estimate the probability that any given passenger (other than Neely) would have died on that trip?
From this side of the screen:
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I was unable to find any examples in a brief search -- plenty of cases of group violence, armed killings, or direct person-to-person conflicts, but none resembling the facts at hand. Presumably it's happened -- just due to the huge numbers of encounters.
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Given that I can't find any examples, and that this type of thing must happen thousands of times a year, I'll put the individual death probability at < 0.01%.
If you can get a better handle on (1), then I'm happy to update.
Quotes like this put the Onion out of business:
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