spiky_fungus
5d ago
If a major war breaks out and he's got a near-monopoly on that technology, he can pretty much name whatever price he wants to the US government.
in minor war, yes
in major war if he overplays then he gets nationalised under some emergency war powers
spiky_fungus
5d ago
What drives me crazy is that only phone videos seem to exist and phone cameras suck for faraway objects in the night. Is there not one good camera with a zoom in New York/New Jersey?
As obviously some good cameras exist - I would expect that reason is the same as lacking high quality pictures of Yeti, Bigfoot, Ukrainian biolabs from Russian propaganda fantasies, Loch Ness monster and so on.
These things are not actually existing or have a boring explanations.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
Really? 90%? Only 10% for typical mass hysteria and people confusing stars, planes, street lamps Christmas decorations etc for UFOs?
spiky_fungus
5d ago
I’m still surprised people are so incredulous about non-conventional explanations
Because when I was younger and had more time I looked into several such cases and it turned out that people advancing non-conventional explanations were some combination of lying, stupid, confused, on hallucinogens, shitposting, unable to distinguish UFO from Milky Way or Sirius and so on.
Give me some serious proof or even hint of proof.
because there are some novel aspects to it
Then clearly list them if you want people to bother.
After spending few times on investigating UFO claims and discovering that it was waste of time induced by liars/incompetent/trolls I am not inclined to waste even more time, I prefer it to waste on something novel. It makes as much sense to investigate this as follow up on "You have received a donation of Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars ($500,000) from" emails.
In fact, following on scam emails likely has greater payoff. Some people managed to scam scammers or at least waste their time.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
Based on this we can say that New Jersey Congressman lied (or repeated lies/confused babbling) about supposed Iranian droneship of the coast of USA.
Silly, but still below old classics like risk of island tipping over.
Also, he may have seen some drones. Or planes. Or stars. Or street lamps. Or something else.
Why this would be of interest to anyone?
UFO people claims at least have some (usually lame, but still) backstory with all this alien stuff.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
Seriously, if you can't handle two time changes a year maximally coordinated to minimize inconvenience
That is two unnecessary dumb government-mandated inconveniences too much.
then you should never be allowed to get on an airplane again in your life
you seem to fail at distinguishing "I dislike it" and "I cannot survive it". You also fail at being aware that planes moving N-S exist and planes travelling on short distances in the same time zone.
Or stay up past your bedtime. Or sleep in.
Yes, I try to avoid it.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
What drones? Can you be more specific in top-level post? At least link some useful summary?
What's the deal with the drones?
Is about war in Ukraine or what?
Are there even any drones?
Probably no then. Unless it is some really big-brain take.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
When you need this level of specificity? Celsius has already too much of it. (except rare cases like measuring fever or scientific research)
spiky_fungus
5d ago
Every contractor in the world is subject to the same problem.
If contractor is redoing my attic and on starting renovations it turns out that my uncle stored there 10kg of U-235, his collection of land mines and 1450kg of asbestos and top secret documents of USA, Ming Empire and Slovenia... Then they can just announce that they stop work, pay penalties stipulated by contract and run away screaming.
The same for say programming contract, if I discover that part of system run on literal punchcards in sealed off bunker then I will likely (depending on contract structure) pay contract penalties and run away or announce that 800h time estimate gets revised to >4800h.
If doctor is doing routine appendix and discovers clot/cancer/other medical emergency equivalent to above they are, I expect, not allowed to run away screaming and pay just modest penalty stipulated by contract and leave patent there.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
I believe superintelligence is not possible.
I see no reason to expect that humans are the most intelligent being possible.
I hope that AIs are nowhere close to that. LLM managing to succeed here would be just sad, being outcompeted by glorified Markov chains would be too much.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
Oh, so now you want to preserve a human-centric unit (like every system of measurement did before SI, metric or not) now that it affects you, rather than those backwards blue-collar people who do human-scale works with their hands?
I dislike non-SI systems for distance/weight/volume in general precisely because it affects me, especially when doing human-scale works with own hands.
(though I am from area which is dominated by SI with minor encroachment of weird units)
spiky_fungus
5d ago
I feel that there's subjective plausibility to the idea that heretics are more hated than heathens, or that traitors are more hated than enemies. If I ask myself how I feel about Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, and then how I feel about Muslims or Hindus, I realise that on a visceral, intuitive level, I dislike the former much more than I dislike the latter
sounds like https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
spiky_fungus
5d ago
Their door signs could be IOT smart displays
no, just no, no, apage, no
This is a dealbreaker to me.
One of effects of being a programmer for me is developing allergy to electronics and "smart" things were they are not critically needed. If your idea requires them - you will have an uphill battle to convince me (though I will gladly repair you IOT system at market rates, and these are definitely higher than printing/carpenter costs).
Also, I want to be able to remember when shop is open without consulting external memory.
spiky_fungus
5d ago
The switch never affects me
switch is annoying as it throws sleep schedule a bit over data change (if you have externally defined work hours)
and this adds some extra confusion for no benefit
few times I wasted few extra hours on fixing DST-related software bugs
spiky_fungus
12d ago
this part of your post
Calin Georgescu's "Holocaust Revisionism" amounts to praise for Romania's WWII wartime leader Ion Antonescu, who was in the 90s still well-regarded among anti-Communist sympathizers. Antonescu's image was dinged some as Elie Wiesel Commission did its relentless Holocaust guilt-tripping campaign
is definitely a Holocaust Revisionism. Specifically "Calin Georgescu's "Holocaust Revisionism" amounts to praise for Romania's WWII wartime leader Ion Antonescu" part.
See
Not only that, but it's pretty odd to say "Calin Georgescu's "Holocaust Revisionism" amounts to praise for Romania's WWII wartime leader Ion Antonescu" when it's followed by a quote indicating that Georgescu also praised Corneliu Codreanu, whose antisemitism was absolutely under zero doubt by any standards.
AFAIK noone in this thread claimed that "praise for Romania's WWII wartime leader Ion Antonescu" is automatically "Holocaust Revisionism"
spiky_fungus
12d ago
We don't know if something is covered by insurance because 5% of the time they decide not to cover what they said they said they would.
You are replying to short post that included "force health insurance companies to make legally binding answers".
spiky_fungus
13d ago
Can you Amadan, parse for me why a Romanian Nationalist praising a Romanian Nationalist leader constitutes Holocaust Revisionism?
this was answered, you are doing your usual dance again of wasting time of others...
In
Western-aligned media focused on maligning the Antonescu administration due to deporting Jews to the East in Transnistria without the proper supplies, doing mass reprisal shootings in response to partisan attacks and other stuff, grossly exaggerating the intentions behind it.
you lied as pointed out in
This is...a severe misrepresentation of Antonescu's involvement in the Holocaust, enough that it got me to stop being a lurker just to say this so people reading your comment do not take it at face value. He encouraged and later did nothing to stop the murder of thousands of Jews, and for those who were not killed, he was complicit in them being rounded up and stuffed in trains that would go in circles, stopping periodically to offload the dead.
also you manipulated as pointed out by
Not only that, but it's pretty odd to say "Calin Georgescu's "Holocaust Revisionism" amounts to praise for Romania's WWII wartime leader Ion Antonescu" when it's followed by a quote indicating that Georgescu also praised Corneliu Codreanu, whose antisemitism was absolutely under zero doubt by any standards.
spiky_fungus
13d ago
wants to bring back the battleships
that seems to disqualify him, that is just absurd
spiky_fungus
13d ago
Still, in such case (meat being rationed) I expect that BTW will not help much compared to other barter and that it will be worse at barter than other mediums of exchange due to insane transaction fees and long confirmation period.
spiky_fungus
13d ago
I am disputing claim that they have some unique "imperialist instinct" or are an "imperial civilization." or lack thereof.
spiky_fungus
13d ago
The cost is fundamentally unknown. It is reasonable to determine what the average cost of a thing is, but that is not helpful information because when we leave the average the costs can become profoundly immense. More people are upset with an estimate that is off by multiple orders of magnitude than by no estimate at all, and that will happen.
As minimum they should be obligated to answer yes/no questions like "is consulting with this specific doctor covered by my health insurance"
If that is too risky to answer I guess they can insure themselves.
Or force health insurance companies to make legally binding answers.
spiky_fungus
13d ago
name another business that is forced to work for free and is prohibited by law from closing unprofitable businesses segments
post offices in some countries
this does not stop them from clearly stating prices
spiky_fungus
13d ago
the claim was
reduces medical expenses
which seem very unlikely to be true. Pension is surely not a medical expense?
spiky_fungus
13d ago
If they fuck around Taiwan then you immediately will be hit by effects. See where CPU are produced.
Also, I was not disputing "USA will not be invaded" claim. I was disputing mainly "The Chinese have no great imperialist instinct" and "not (...) an imperial civilization with global aims."
"they will not invade USA in predictable future" is hardly proof of "have no great imperialist instinct"
Oh, with that I fully agree (and depending on dates/inflation/what would delivered trillion may be actually on table...)
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