mr_bailey
3d ago
There were probably just memorable and your brain converts being able to remember multiple storms as meaning they must have happened often. Most parts of CA really don't get major thunderstorms all that often. Once every 1-3 years sounds about right for where I'm at for ex.
mr_bailey
3d ago
Yeah, a straight subsidy is better then whatever price controls CA keeps flirting with. There's a real risk that of breaking the property insurance market with those sorts of moves.
mr_bailey
3d ago
His math is right:
"80 deaths 80 QALYS lost 365 2460 = 11 QALMS (Quality adjusted life minutes)"
80 deaths * 80 QALYS (generous, statistically prob. more like 60-70) lost * 365 * 24 * 60 / 330,000,000 => 10.19 (rounds up to 11 minutes)
Whether the population of the US is the right denominator is potentially debatable, but is not a priori crazy.
mr_bailey
11d ago
We don't really have a good idea how different individuals will react, this guy seems to have pretty badly f*cked up his life https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/23/us-pilot-magic-mushrooms-plane-engines (tldr pilot takes some mushrooms for depression, 2 days later is riding in the jump seat of plane [as a passenger, not flying the plane] has a bit of mental breakdown and tries to turn off the plane's engines to wake up, the interactions with the crew are odd and suggest to me more of a break with reality [could be due to the shrooms, or not, hard to say definitely] then a murder/suicide but ymmv).
mr_bailey
14d ago
It's another step removed from that, most of these studies are looking at Educational Attainment (e.g. highest degree received) which itself is a (highly) imperfect measure of IQ (which itself is an imperfect measure of General Intelligence 'g' which is the name given to the statistical observation that many different measures of what we consider intelligence correlate pretty tightly). The Genome Association studies are further largely using SNP databases which themselves more often only correlations to whatever loci are actually impacting things rather then directly impactful themselves.
mr_bailey
18d ago
Things could get weird. The US (and North America as a whole) are net oil producers these days. Shutting off the gulf is such a large shock to the system you could see some pretty significant price divergence and shortages between regions as infrastructure limits could prevent fully arbitraging the difference. You could also see political impediments to price balancing as well (wouldn't put it past Trump to ban oil exports to keep US prices in check even if it's a huge blow to our allies) and most Canadian crude has to transit the US to reach the world markets. You could even see divergence in the US where West Coast is more exposed then East coast due to Jone's Act restrictions making it difficult to move oil around the Rockies.
mr_bailey
18d ago
Mines, missiles, and drones? Civil ships are not exactly small targets and Iranian drones have seen some use in Ukraine. Could get ugly. It's likely the gulf states, East/South Asia and to a lesser degree Europe would be more affected then the US (who is, after all, a net oil exporter these days), so this hits US allies (and China, India etc.) much more then the US and Trump hasn't shown a high degree of concern about them...
mr_bailey
1mo ago
This interview with a Russian drone designer is from a few weeks ago, but really interesting from a perspective of how drone warfare has been evolving on the front lines.
mr_bailey
1mo ago
This is the popular conception of HOA's, but everyone I've been involved with has predominately existed to maintain shared infrastructure (in the single family home case often infrastructure that probably should be the city's responsibility, but the city is uninterested; they still get tax revenue but don't have to pay for it). It's a failure mode of HOA's but how common is it really?
mr_bailey
1mo ago
I'm president of the board of my local HOA. It seems typical for many in the area that it was put in place by the developer when the area was built out and that it exists at all is completely down to the city (that entirely surrounds the development) being unwilling to pay for anything. The dues of around $200/mo cover maintaining the roads/streetlights/signange, bridge over a 50ft ravine (it's hilly), landscaping along the roads and various maintenance activities with the 1/2 of the overall land that is 'dedicated open space' by demand of the city (the developer wanted to put in significantly more housing, that they were able to put in any was only after much negotiating from what I understand) which we are not allowed to say chop down dead trees in but also must keep from burning down all the houses and neighboring properties (a lot of weed whacking and brush clearing is involved). It would probably be dissolved if the city would take over the relevant maintenance (which it won't), it's all single family homes.
Our general challenge is getting enough volunteer board members (3), I don't think we've ever had a contested election in the entire history, and getting to quorum of votes (50%+1) in any election (last time was maybe 6 years ago?). The only somewhat contentious things we've had to deal with are parking disputes (no street parking allowed, we apparently can be forced pay to maintain the roads but the city gets final say on how they are used) so guest parking is limited. Technically, the by-laws give us the power to require (and enforce with inspections) that garages be cleared out enough to park two cars and the two cars are parked in the garage before parking in the driveways or guest parking, though we haven't yet reached the point of enforcing that. We have some other powers, but I suspect the only thing we'd enforce them around is planting large trees [eg. redwoods etc.], changing the exterior colors of houses, and hogging common areas [parking especially]. In general, the city does still get a quite significant amount of control over things, pre-me they tried to install a gate near the entrance of the community (it's like 15 acres or so, so plenty of room) and the city absolutely forbid it as in 'out-of-character' for the city and stated their policy is to allow only in the grandfathered places. So our power over this 'private' sub-city is limited.
mr_bailey
1mo ago
For (2) while we've seen some improvements, it's definitely not proven that current approaches will enable significant physical world interaction. A world where AI does all the remote desk jobs, but humans are still pulling cables is not out of the realm of possibility.
mr_bailey
1mo ago
"The current environment of mania and hype shares a lot of traits in common with previous tech bubbles that ultimately failed to really pan out for one reason or another, like crypto, blockchain, NFTs, VR, Metaverses, augmented reality, 3D printing, etc."
Definitely does, but some hype bubbles do pan out (smartphone, social media, internet/ecommerce [with a bust along the way], arguably solar power).
mr_bailey
1mo ago
Most US prostitution is not streetwalker (estimates range from 10-20% streetwalkers). The dominant forms of prostitution are call-girls/escorts and pseudo-brothels (e.g. massage parlors, etc.). Both claim the fig leaf (with varying seriousness/success) that the payment is nominally for other legal services and any sex is just happenstance.
mr_bailey
3mo ago
Part of the challenge is that you don't see trade that doesn't happen. We don't know the counterfactual of how large trade would be in a heavily tariffed vertical absent the tariffs. Sure the US exports very little milk to Canada so the high tariff there doesn't mean much, but that just assume the conclusion, maybe exports of milk to Canada would be way higher if the tariff was lower.
mr_bailey
3mo ago
" The long plan is outlined in meticulous detail in Chinese on a Google Docs form by MIL."
Ha, about 20 years ago went to China with (future) MIL. She sent out an itinerary for the 10 days with an apology note for the sloppiness and imprecision of the schedule as the software she was using forced all activities to be a multiple of 15 minutes.
mr_bailey
7mo ago
While I don't disagree with the general comments on PMC status and the waste from overly restrictive supply of Dr.s. It's important to note that among some milieus PA/NP (even to some degree RN) are high status careers. Yes, they are largely working class jobs, but they are among the highest status working class jobs so you are getting many of the most competent folks in those milieus. Is it the same caliber as the marginally rejected medical student? probably not (our education system is pretty good at pulling out the occasional truly super bright folks that pop up and setting them on different paths).
It's a point of contention, but it is not at all established that care from NPs and, in particular, PAs is "vastly inferior" to care from Doctors for the situations they are typically used in. Studies on this matter are mixed (some have found PAs to provide equivalent or even in some cases better care, and, amusingly, generally much better documentation, while others have come to opposite conclusions on quality of care).
I live near a large memory care facility, we get a lot of Silver Alerts from it. I'm ok with a text level of notification, but the actual alarm should be reserved for evacuation orders.
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