Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
12hr ago
Weren't there like 9 injuries? That's the kind of casualty ratio you get from randomly emptying a handgun clip into a crowd.
Quantumfreakonomics
13hr ago
My knowledge of the geography of the northeast United States is limited, but I believe the two locations are at most a couple of hours apart.
The guy could have walked from Brown to MIT in the time between the two shootings.
I feel I was a bit flippant in my post on the subject in last week's thread. I didn't consider the possibility that the shooter could still be at large well into the week. We are seeing a new meta emerging in real time. If one has a getaway plan, it's possible to run from the law for several days, perhaps even stringing together multiple attacks in the process.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
There was a shooting at Brown University yesterday. Two people were killed. This is of course a tragedy, the kind of tragedy that has been well-litigated both here and everywhere else on the internet.
Brown decided to follow this up with another tragedy: canceling all outstanding exams and operations for the remainder of 2025.
"Given these deeply tragic events, all remaining undergraduate, graduate and medical classes, exams, and papers or projects for the Fall 2025 semester will not take place as scheduled. This choice was made out of our profound concern for all students, faculty and staff. In the immediate aftermath of these devastating events, we recognize that learning and assessment are significantly hindered in the short term and that many students and others will wish to depart campus. We know there will be many academic concerns about the implications of not holding classes and exams as scheduled, and we will follow up to provide students with more information in the coming days."
One of the issues with our education system is that it is fundamentally unserious. Final exams are, or ought to be, a big fucking deal. Ten thousand of our supposedly best and brightest students will now pass an entire semester of advanced classes without a comprehensive examination of their skills and capabilities. Medical classes. I hope the physician you visit to get your unusually yellow skin checked out didn't take hepatology at Brown University in Fall 2025.
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
The United States is going to sell-out Taiwan. The discussion we need to be having is what our price should be.
I propose 500 billion dollars, accomplished via the cancelation of China-held treasuries.
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
There are lots of things that are legal that still make you an asshole.
Drop the deets.
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
"The common advice to arrive at the airport two hours early is outdated. Modern airports push through more people in less time. Airport security just isn't that slow anymore. You can arrive with much less spare time and you'll be fine."
"United airlines rerouted my luggage onto a different flight that arrives two hours after I need it. It's incredible how unreliable United is, between delays, lost luggage, and completely ruining trips."
Protip - You have the capability to walk yourself from check-in to the gate and onto the plane. Your luggage does not have this capability.
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
No, the rest of the world could not win by selling massive amounts of cheap products at a loss.
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
Quantumfreakonomics
7d ago
My apologies. I forget that a disproportionate share of this community hails from the most topographically inefficient metropolitan area in the country.
Quantumfreakonomics
7d ago
There's a good chance you've read this, but just in case you haven't:
Indians Are Hated Because They Are Dark and Can't Play Football
Quantumfreakonomics
7d ago
it's a 50 minute drive to the nearest proper city
This is an exurb. You live in the countryside. You might as well own a farm.
Quantumfreakonomics
7d ago
Then get married and become a normie.
You say this as if it is a choice.
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
It even has a little sign outside.
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
The real losers here are movie theaters.
Your grandchildren (if you even get to have any lol) will be completely perplexed that driving multiple miles to watch a movie in a big room with dozens of strangers was not only a thing that happened sometimes, but was one of the nation's most popular passtimes.
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
I've certainly heard rumors of this, so I decided to check Polymarket. Turns out it's over. Looks like capital markets are still superior for truthseeking, since WBD stock was not trading at the aquisition price on Friday. Now I have to do merger arbitrage math.
Quantumfreakonomics
11d ago
this story is hard to believe.
Why not? Self-righteous sixteen-year-old me would have done it if I happened to be in the neighborhood.
Quantumfreakonomics
11d ago
I'll have you know that I haven't been a self-righteous sixteen-year-old in many years, and that I am now a pseudonymous stranger on the internet.
Quantumfreakonomics
11d ago
While looking into some loose ends from the UCSD remidial math fiasco from the other week, I made the startling discovery that there are approximately zero legally-enforcable standards that require students to demonstrate any knowledge whatsoever in order to recieve a passing grade. There are however, very enforcable legal requirements for schools not to discriminate against students across a broad swath of categories (arguably including intelligence itself).
It's not entirely clear to me what the incentive is to ever fail any student. My sense is that the university has a vague interest in academic integrity in order to maintain its reputation and accreditation, but that at the individual professor level, the risk-payoff matrix weighs overwhelmingly in favor of passing anyone who provides any legally relevant pushback at all. If you don't give in, and the university decides that this opened them up to a lawsuit, you get fired.
Quantumfreakonomics
11d ago
I have a bit more sympathy for Canadians given that their country isn't dotted coast-to-coast with small cities and large towns. If you can't affort Toronto or Vancouver, where do you go? Calgary?
Quantumfreakonomics
12d ago
I mean, we’ve known this since Snowden haven’t we? I guess until now they were just sitting on all data in the universe and not doing anything with it.
Quantumfreakonomics
12d ago
What does “94% match” mean in this context?
Does it mean that the capitol officer matches the suspect’s gait more closely than 94% of people?
Does it mean that the capitol officer is 94% likely to be the suspect?
Does it mean that 94% of the abstract computer analysis indices are within the arbitrary “match” range for both of them?
How many people exist in the Washington DC Metro that would be at least a 94% match? Without knowing that this information is approximately useless. That is what we need in order to do a basic Bayesian analysis.
A few possibilities in no particular order:
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This guy is a patsy, thrown against the wall by Kash Patel in a desperate attempt to keep his job.
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The FBI has had this guy as a suspect for a long time, but they didn’t have the evidence they thought they needed for an obvious conviction in a politically-charged case.
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Nome of their other January 6 leads ever tied-in to the attempted pipe-bombing. Because of this, they assumed that the incident was unrelated to the other more-important conspiracies that played out that day.
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The FBI know early-on that the suspect was a leftist or otherwise clearly non-MAGA. It was politically unacceptable to give the impression that any part of January 6 was not the fault of Trump or Republicans, so the case was dropped.
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The team originally assigned to the case was legitimately incompetent, and nobody ever checked their work.
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The suspect is himself a fed (unlikely IMO, but the situation is strange enough that we have to keep the possibility open).
EDIT - One more idea after reading Gillirut’s breakdown of the evidence:
- The FBI only recently got the go-ahead to use Palantir technology on the giant NSA databank of all internet activity to find the suspect.
Quantumfreakonomics
13d ago
Fox News phenotype.
Quantumfreakonomics
13d ago
It's like watching The Simpsons. I halfway expect to see Chief Wiggum in these clips.
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