ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
"J.D. Vance" or "JD Vance"? We all know about preferred pronouns, but should a person be able to pick his preferred punctuation? The Wall Street Journal discusses the issue.
See also "Donald Trump, Jr.", vs. "Donald Trump Jr.".
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3mo ago
Apparently, brothels are legal in (most of) Australia—and they are, not equivalent to the paltry brothels of rural Nevada, but a real competitive market. In theory they aren't permitted to advertise, but in practice enforcement is lax, and the establishments think nothing of touting their zillions of jade-like beauties online.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3mo ago
I can't speak for the denizens of this forum, but /pol/ offers this collage of clickbait YouTube thumbnails suggesting that Zeihan's forecasting of the imminent collapse of China has been highly inaccurate.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3mo ago
Is there an overview of Gamergate anywhere, from the pro-Gamergate side?
The sidebar and wiki of /r/kotakuinaction appear to contain links to several summaries.
ToaKraka
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3mo ago
A quick Google search indicates that "theft" has for many centuries been a generic word that covers larceny of physical items, embezzlement of entrusted funds, and taking of money through false pretenses. Is larceny the central example of theft, so that calling an embezzler or a fraudster a thief is misleading? I'm not sure.
But "killing" someone by consensually selling to him drugs on which he happens to overdose definitely is not a central example of murder.
At the time of writing, a /pol/ thread claims that this passage, in which Vance admits to masturbating with the lubed interior of a rubber glove held between two couch cushions, was in the first edition of his book, but was deleted from later editions.
ToaKraka
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4mo ago
Isn't sexist or racist either
"Cackling" carries connotations of femininity (it generally is not used to describe a man's laughter), so it could be considered sexist. (I can't think of a masculine counterpart word.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4mo ago
The Amazon Visa (from Chase) offers zero-interest financing for six months on Amazon purchases of at least 50 dollars, and for 12 months on Amazon purchases of at least 250 dollars. (There used to be an 18-month, 500-dollar offer as well, but it seems to have been discontinued.) This isn't quite free money: if you take a financing offer, you do not get the 3-percent cash back (5-percent with Prime) that you would get normally.
The Amazon Visa is not the same as the Amazon Store Card (from Synchrony) and the Amazon Secured Card (ditto). The Store Card and Secured Card offer zero-interest financing for six months on Amazon purchases of at least 50 dollars, for 12 months on Amazon purchases of at least 600 dollars, and for 24 months on "select purchases" at Amazon. The same caveat regarding lost cash back applies to the Store Card.
All information presented above is from this page (except for the 18-month parenthetical, which is from personal experience).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4mo ago
there's no easy way to type the dashes on a standard keyboard
In Markdown, at least, you can use HTML named character references. "& ndash;" without the space after the ampersand → "–", and "& mdash;" without the space after the ampersand → "—".
I have no idea what the difference in usage between em dash and en dash is supposed to be
Wikipedia's Manual of Style includes a handy guide—though, of course, Wikipedia is not necessarily trustworthy.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4mo ago
Theodore Dreiser was one of the clumsiest writers to ever hold a pen
I enjoyed reading The Financier and The Titan, personally.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4mo ago
The Bangla-language version of Wikipedia's article on the quota system uses a word that Google translates as "tribal" rather than "indigenous".
Wikipedia's article on Bangladesh's demographics says:
Bangladesh's tribal population was enumerated at 897,828 [1.0 percent of the total] in the 1981 census. These tribes are concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and around Mymensingh, Sylhet, and Rajshahi. They are of Sino-Tibetan descent and differ markedly in their social customs, religion, language and level of development. They speak Tibeto-Burman languages and most are Buddhist or Hindu. The four largest tribes are Chakmas, Marmas, Tipperas, Tanchangya, and Mros. Smaller groups include the Santals in Rajshahi and Dinajpur, and Khasis, Garos, and Khajons in Mymensingh and Sylhet regions.
There's a separate Wikipedia article on the topic.
ToaKraka
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4mo ago
Reuters: Explainer: Why are Bangladesh students protesting against job quotas?
The demonstrations started last month after the High Court reinstated a quota system for government jobs, overturning a 2018 decision by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government to scrap it.
That move, which covered the 30% of jobs reserved for family members of freedom fighters in the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan, followed similar student protests.
But the Supreme Court suspended the high court order after the government's appeal, setting a date of Aug. 7 to hear the government's challenge.
However, the students stepped up their protest when Hasina refused to meet their demands, citing the court proceedings.
Introduced in 1972, Bangladesh's quota system has gone through several changes since. When it was abolished in 2018, 56% of government jobs were blocked under various quotas.
The bulk covered groups such as freedom fighters' families, with women and those from underdeveloped districts receiving a share of a tenth each, with 5% allotted to indigenous communities, and 1% for the disabled.
The protesting students want all categories abolished, except the last two.
Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, who led its freedom movement. Protesters and critics say the 30% quota for families of freedom fighters favours Awami League supporters, which led the independence fight.
Experts also attribute the unrest to stagnant job growth in the private sector, making public sector jobs, with their accompanying regular wage hikes and privileges, very attractive.
The quotas shrink the number of government jobs open for all, hurting aspirants who want them filled on the basis of merit.
They have sparked anger among students grappling with high youth unemployment, as nearly 32 million young people are out of work or education from a population of 170 million.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4mo ago
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4mo ago
Not caring and keeping to myself at work is not an option.
Amateur.
if I stick with my field, I'll be looking at working alongside people like these for the next 30 years, give or take
You could just work for significantly less than thirty years, rather than committing suicide by three decades of torture. If you're in the US, the federal Consumer Expenditure Survey can serve as a guide for budgeting. Just use the "cross-tabulated: size of consumer unit by income before taxes: one person: less than $15,000" column, and adjust for inflation and your actual expenses.
The Internet Archive page also provides an OCR version of the same scan (labeled "PDF with text").
market
Don't forget that this document technically still is under copyright, so in theory you could be prosecuted for infringement, and charging money for the transcription presumably would expose you to even greater penalties.
In order to properly format lines in a poetic stanza, type two spaces at the end of each line, and don't type an extra carriage return between the lines. Use the "view source" button to compare these two examples:
'Twas brillig; and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
'Twas brillig; and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
A recent patch for the video game Victoria 3 has added a mechanic for the creation of "power blocs" by countries that have achieved the rank of "major power". A power bloc can be focused on trade (customs union and open borders), hegemony (the British Empire), ideology (Austria's Metternich System), military (mutual defense), or religion.
In real life, we all know about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. But did you know that there are many other international organizations of similar nature?
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The Southern Common Market and the Andean Community (two four-country customs unions, with basically-open borders all over)
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The Central American Integration System (four countries with open borders, plus four more with a customs union)
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The Eurasian Economic Union (five countries with customs union and open borders)
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The East African Community (eight countries with customs union and open borders, explicitly aiming for eventual unification into a single federation)
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The Economic Community of West African States (
fifteentwelve countries with customs union)
Et cetera.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4mo ago
Link (from 2013, not "about a year or two ago")
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus's health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant, and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.
Editor's justification for publishing the article
This extension of the existing debate around infanticide from medical indications to social indications is relatively novel. I don't personally agree with it. But their arguments—based on the similar moral status of the fetus and neonate—call for rebuttal.
This paper was scrutinised by three peer reviewers and revised in light of their comments. The Journal publishes or refrains from publishing articles, not because of the controversial nature of their conclusion, but rather on the quality of the argument. If an argument were based on clearly and obviously mistaken premises, then we would reject it. But in this case there has been a long and ongoing debate on the moral status of early human life—embryos, fetuses, and neonates, as the above literature attests.
The Journal is publishing opposing views to accompany this controversial article.
Under the relevant section of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (a set of regulations issued by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration), only the passenger-side rear-view mirror is permitted to be convex. (That's the reason for the "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" warning.) The interior and driver-side mirrors, on the other hand, are specifically required to be flat ("of unit magnification").
Some cursory searches (1 2) of the Federal Register do not reveal any discussion of the rationale behind this particular rule. However, one other discussion appears to be related. On vehicles that are heavier than five tons, the passenger-side rear-view mirror cannot be convex, but is required to be flat like the other two mirrors. Way back in year 2000, AM General, the manufacturer of the Hummer H1 (with gross weight of 5.15–6.05 tons), requested that this rule be changed to match the rule for passenger vehicles. With typical government alacrity, NHTSA took five years to reject the request:
Despite public commenters' expressions of support for a convex-mirror option for the vehicles in question, the agency remains concerned about the difficulties that drivers may encounter in correctly judging distance and speed of approaching traffic if the vehicle is only equipped with a convex mirror. As stated in the Request for Comments, although convex mirrors are permitted on the passenger side of light vehicles, the agency still receives complaints from consumers about these mirrors. "There have been other problems associated with the use of convex mirrors that include double vision, eyestrain, and nausea."
In approximately 98 percent of my trips, there is no passenger. I keep the front passenger seat's headrest in the rear seats' footwell, so that, in the rare event that I do have a passenger, the headrest can be reinstalled in just a few seconds of toolless effort. Your situation, and your vehicle, may be different.
As an alternative to removing the headrest, you can just fold the seat back so that the headrest doesn't block your view.
Yes, government is bad. But, as I understand it, Accursed Farms does not want to force the publisher to maintain the servers forever. Rather, he wants to force the publisher to make it possible for players to set up their own servers after the publisher's servers are shut down.
Quote from the petition:
"Repairing the game" includes setting up non-publisher-controlled servers.
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