ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3mo ago
Reuters: Meet the secretive Colombian guerrillas who could deal final blow to peace plan
Segunda Marquetalia remains loyal to the Marxist ideals, like land redistribution, that inspired the FARC's 1964 founding, and many Segunda Marquetalia leaders are long-time FARC veterans now in their 60s.
[Segunda Marquetalia head negotiator Walter] Mendoza, who at 67 is a four-decade rebel veteran, said investment in long-neglected parts of the country is a priority for the guerrillas before they will surrender the leverage offered by arms.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
I voted "no", but I felt obligated to voice my objections anyway.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Okay, "liquid investment account(s) from which cash can be withdrawn on a few days' notice".
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3mo ago
That's a very vague question, susceptible to a multitude of interpretations. ("Is your opinion of a woman reduced if you see that she has obtained a tattoo?" "Should women be frowned on by society for obtaining tattoos?" "Should women be forbidden by the government from obtaining tattoos?") (Inb4 the entire point of the vagueness is just to get a general idea of "the vibes".)
Also, no "I have no strong feelings one way or the other" option is offered. (Inb4 taking such an option would be a cop-out, as the original Political Compass poll's FAQ says.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3mo ago
I wish there were a book called "Things That 90% of Economists Agree On".
Consensus Among Economists 2020
Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90 percent)
Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (95 percent)
If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the course of the business cycle rather than yearly. (93 percent)
Fiscal policy (e .g., tax cut and/or expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (94 percent)
Appropriately designed fiscal policy can increase the long-run rate of capital formation and economic growth. (90 percent)
The Earned Income Tax Credit program should be expanded. (90 percent)
Immigration generally has a net positive economic effect for the US economy. (97 percent)
Antitrust laws should be enforced vigorously. (93 percent)
Addressing biases in individuals and institutions can improve both equity and efficiency. (90 percent)
See also the surveys conducted by the University of Chicago's Clark Center for Global Markets. (The website seems to be a bit broken at the moment, possibly due to a recent domain-name change. Older surveys can be found using the Internet Archive.)
Capping annual rent increases by corporate landlords at 5 percent, as proposed by President Biden, would not make middle-income Americans substantially better off over the next ten years. (85 percent)
Capping annual rent increases at 5 percent, as proposed by President Biden, would substantially reduce the amount of available apartments for rent over the next ten years. (72 percent)
Capping annual rent increases at 5%, as proposed by President Biden, would not substantially reduce US income inequality over the next ten years. (79 percent)
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
The protagonist of Houellebecq's Submission tried joining a monastery for a non-permanent period, but left after just two days. I don't know how realistic that is.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Standard US tips are 20% of the bill.
A cursory Google search suggests that 15 to 20 percent is the standard range.
Restaurant owners strongly encourage credit card payments
What about the big class-action lawsuit regarding credit-card fees? And the other lawsuit regarding credit-card policies that forbade businesses from "steering" customers away from credit cards and toward cash?
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
In my town it is residential sprinkler systems, even though we haven't had a deadly fire in 100 years. The fire chief's car even has "residential sprinklers save lives" on the side of it. Guess what the other half of his family does? You guessed it: residential sprinkler systems.
To be fair, residential sprinkler systems have been mandatory in the IRC since year 2011, so your jurisdiction is not necessarily being corrupt here.
They are one more point of failure and horrific water damage, all for no real net increase in safety.
The NAHB also opposes this code provision, considering it a waste of money when three-quarters of house-fire deaths occur in houses that don't even have working smoke alarms.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Culture war in building codes?
In most of the United States, the building codes are based on codes issued by the ICC (International Code Council), including the IECC (International Energy Conservation Code). Apparently, the committee in charge of updating the IECC for 2024 attempted to insert a bunch of mandatory provisions that were not directly related to energy conservation. The NAHB (National Association of Homebuilders) summarizes the objectionable provisions as follows:
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Electric-vehicle charging infrastructure in both residential and commercial buildings
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Solar-readiness provisions in residential buildings
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Electric-readiness provisions for electric cooking, clothes drying, and water heating
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Penalty for using natural gas for space or water heating in commercial buildings
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Electrical energy storage system readiness in commercial buildings
These insertions were appealed to the ICC's board of directors, which (by votes of at least 10 to 7) ordered that they be moved to nonmandatory appendices of the code.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Slave owners ran breeding programs
This was debunked decades ago. See Time on the Cross.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
movie options
Note that Logan's Run and Soylent Green (Make Room! Make Room!) also are available in their original book form.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Wikipedia's list of sovereign states may be of interest to you.
The rightmost column of the table also includes information on autonomous regions. If 1 percent of people have heard of Suriname and Guyana, then 0.1 percent of people have heard of Gagauzia and Adjara!
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
I keep wondering what women do with their time and money
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics can answer that question with its Consumer Expenditure Survey and Time Use Survey. For example:
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Dollars spent per year in the 2021–2022 period on "toys, hobbies, and playground equipment": 69 for single men, 94 for single women (for dollars spent on "pets", it's 282 vs. 647)
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Hours spent per day in 2023 on "playing games": 0.50 for men, 0.24 for women
What's the base rate of mechanical failure across these marques? Does anyone know?
This site claims to have analyzed millions of used-car auctions to determine long-term mechanical reliability. Its overall "manufacturer quality index" looks like this:
- 90–89: Lexus, Toyota
- 79–67: Hummer, Porsche, Scion, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Infiniti
- 57–32: Remainder (57 is the average)
- 19: Suzuki
- 12: Smart
- 0: Mini
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3mo ago
Apparently, the Lieutenant Governor of Vermont actually implemented this advice in his office, and was censured for it by the state's Speaker of the House after legislators "reported feeling uncomfortable".
“Offering feminine hygiene products in an office and seeking out women to let them know about the availability is not acceptable,” [Speaker] Krowinski wrote in the letter, dated Feb. 2, 2023. “While you may have good intentions, it has left women feeling very uncomfortable and unsure why they were chosen or why it became a topic of conversation with you.”
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Surely not in your pockets
Some pistols are small enough to fit in a pocket.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Possibly the funniest paragraph ever written in a court opinion:
In the fall of 2021, Complainant, [Appellant] Dawson's 14-year-old daughter, asked him if she could go to her boyfriend's house. Dawson agreed but conditioned his permission on her letting him “eat her out”. Sometime after, on a day when Complainant stayed home from school, Dawson acted on this.
Source (found on this government webpage, though you would be forgiven for expecting a link to ArchiveOfOurOwn or Literotica)
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
The article also states that he didn't report any dividend or capital-gains income on his 2022 tax return. But maybe the mutual funds are in an IRA or something.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
they just amended the bill to delete everything past "this will take effect" and wrote their own bill, which seems unbelievable
It isn't out of the ordinary. If you run a search for "Strike all after the enacting clause" in Congress, you will see more than a hundred such amendments proposed in the current session, and if you filter by "status of amendment" you will see that many of them succeeded.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Don't forget to escape your asterisks. w\*man Fr\*nch yields "w*man Fr*nch" instead of "wman Frnch".
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
Android can be set to grayscale in the operating system's developer options ("Simulate color space" → "Monochromacy"), with no app required.
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