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bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   4133 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Why anti-HBD people don't promote e.g. usage of artificial languages like Lojban? (the only example I know is early Soviets promoting Esperanto). Wouldn't be type of language affecting individual's development a lot? Also, Chinese and Japanese have problem that word lookup is difficult. This is a less problem is smartphone era, but earlier finding a word was pretty difficult whereas in alphabetic languages any child can find word in dictionary fairly quickly. I read someone hypothesing that this must have negative effect on social mobility.

As @Aransentin said, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has been pretty thoroughly debunked (at least the strong form, and most linguists don't even take the weak form seriously anymore). There's been little to no evidence that language actually shapes culture or cognition; rather, it seems to be the other way around.

Which is why Lojban has never been more than a curiosity, whereas Esperanto still has a fairly large community. Lojban is interesting but started with a premise that they built a language around; natural languages don't develop around concepts like predicate logic. Esperanto was actually developed with the intention of being easy and natural to speak (at least for European language speakers).

I'd imagine most people aren't Sapir–Whorfists, and don't consider language to be particularly important for individual development compared to things like culture and family.

Still, even if they did, one would have to actually learn Lojban to not seem like a hypocrite when advocating for it – and if there's one thing people don't like to do, it's putting effort into things.

Under which standard of evidence Sapir _Whorf was debunked but, say, systemic racism wasn't?

There is active attempts to push pronouns/latinx/v Ukraine and other changes to language.

Is there some sort of discord for this place?

There's a link to one in the sidebar: Astral Codex Ten Discord

What sort of monster would prefer synchronous to asynchronous communication, anyway?

the acx discord is generally left-wing compared to ACX iirc

Thought there was a motte specific one? If not we should make one.

Matrix > Discord

I'm a lot less tech-savvy than this site's admins, and even I have been able to set up an instance (using DigitalOcean's """one-click""" offering, which costs 6 $/mo).

I'm pretty sure there was a motte-specific one in the past, idk if it still exists

Someone mentioned it the other day. I asked but never got a reply.

First you argue for transhumanism, and now this...

I’m a maverick ;)

I guess I’d like to try and increase the quality of posts by doing collaboration, editing, etc among some of the others here. Hard to coordinate over this platform.

USPS offers free mail forwarding for when you move. The web form asks you "When should we start forwarding mail to your new address?"

The weird thing is, the site also says the following, emphasis mine:

Enter the date you'd like us to begin forwarding your mail to your new address. The date you enter must not be more than 30 days prior to today, or more than 3 months from today. Mail should arrive at your new address 7-10 postal business days after your move effective date OR your file date, whichever date is later.

What's the point of the portion in bold? It's not as if the USPS can go back in time to forward your mail, so entering any date prior to today is pointless, so not only do I not understand the bold portion, I also don't understand the nuance of what's special about the 30 day period. I recall seeing this language for several years in the past, so it's not some recent typo.

The only thing semi plausible I can think of is that maybe some letters take a very long time to go through the system, so perhaps a letter postdated Dec 21, 2022 that's stuck in a sorting facility somewhere could see it rerouted to the new address if the recipient submitted the request on Dec 28, 2022. But given the paragraph above says it takes 7-10 postal business days for this to kick in, I highly doubt they are sophisticated to execute my hypothesis.

I also thought it was weird that googling the exact phrase above yielded nothing on the web. How am I the only person on earth curious about this language?

If you moved out of your old home, and someone else moved in, if they're very conscientious they'll turn your mail into the post office. Maybe they'll forward that?

I work in shipping. You are largely correct about the transit-time mattering. The date the USPS cares about is the post-date; when it gets hit with the stamp at the first sort center of its journey. It gives you a chance to redirect some shipments still "in-flight" so to speak.

The USPS actually has the best website of all the major US carriers. If you fill out their forms they actually do the things they say they will 99% of the time. This is very, very, very much NOT the case with UPS/FEDEX websites. Their self service tools are largely worthless.

What should I include in a CV for a software engineering internship? I'm a PhD student in pure math with little relevant work experience. Some highlights:

-Teaching (including some CS-relevant classes like linear algebra and discrete math).

-Coauthorship on several publications.

-A little programming work towards one of said publications in C and Sage, some more in C for master's thesis, a bit in Python for the current dissertation.

-Project Euler, mainly in Python with occasional pen-and-paper (285 solved currently. Almost caught up to our nybbler. Not much low-hanging fruit left.)

-Grades: mediocre undergrad in an irrelevant subject. Graduate coursework is all math and much cleaner.

-Teaching and academic awards.

-Coauthorship on several publications.

-A little programming work towards one of said publications in C and Sage, some more in C for master's thesis, a bit in Python for the current dissertation.

-Project Euler, mainly in Python with occasional pen-and-paper (285 solved currently. Almost caught up to our nybbler. Not much low-hanging fruit left.)

I would pick these three. Co-authorship shows you've learned something. Existing programming experience, even if minimal, shows you can code (you'd be amazed how many people fail FizzBuzz-equivalent tasks).

As somebody who interviewed a few people for SWE positions, some thoughts:

  • Any code you wrote that you think looks nice and you can explain what it is doing. Especially if it does something cool, even if it's not related to the immediate are of employment - if you can do one cool thing, good chance you can do more cool things.

  • Any topics you are interested in or worked on which can be in relation to what you current employer is doing.

  • Any tools/frameworks/concepts you have working familiarity with. Don't exaggerate too much though - if you write "I am an expert in C", you'd get an expert-level C questions, and unless you can answer them, you'd look bad. If you write "I have working knowledge of C", you have less chance of overpromising. Don't list trivial things like "I can make HTML page" - it's not exciting for decades now, and just annoys people.

  • Project Euler probably won't do much on CV, but you can mention it in the interview if an opportunity arises, and if you have some cool example that can demonstrate how you solved some interesting problem in a way that shows how good you are.

Basically on the interview I try to find out:

  • Is the candidate smart and capable of doing the tasks we'd need done

  • Does the candidate has the relevant experience and if yes, which one - so we can figure out into which project they could contribute

  • Are they going to be good to work with - decent communication skills, personality etc.

IMO don't lean on academic awards and unrelated publications too much - this can only create the impression you're an ivory castle dweller and earn you the dreaded "overqualified" mark. I mean, you don't have to hide it, but don't bring it as something that you consider to be a major factor, because for most SWE internship positions it won't be. Grades, especially old ones, are of very little importance IMO.

Grades, especially old ones, are of very little importance IMO.

I'll go further and claim that grades are completely and utterly irrelevant if you have literally anything at all to show for your skills (and if you don't, you're pretty screwed). I have no idea why so many American students are obsessed with them, given that nobody in the industry cares.

Right. I mean, if you are literally a fresh graduate with zero other things to show (which by itself is a bad thing, I'd expect to have at least some practical things to show) and perfect grades, it may be mildly interesting, in a way of "ok, I guess it's better than nothing", but in general nobody in the industry has the slightest interest in the grades.

I mean, my employer will occasionally list a GPA requirement/preference for senior-level openings, but i assume thats either HR's doing, or the hiring manager not really thinking things through.

HR may look at it, and if the company is big enough, it could happen that CVs with low GPAs or no GPAs would be screened out at this stage. In a smaller company, that's not likely to happen as people who actually make hiring decisions would be aware of what HR uses to screen and tell them not to do that.

Also, for a senior SWE position you should have enough experience that puts your grades years if not decades back. I can't imagine any hiring manager seriously worrying about grades made many years ago for something that is likely bear no connection with whatever work needs to be done now. At least not any manager who knows what they're doing :) Almost certainly it's something that HR inserted.

GPA requirement/preference for senior-level openings

HR is of course bad everywhere, but they sound especially bad at your employer. I interview a lot of people. We don't ask for GPA. The only job that actually verified my degrees was the very first one I got right after school.

  1. Grad school.

  2. Specific courses have massive waiting lists, and people with better grades are given priority.

  3. That one employer who will ask for transcripts. (I remember applying for a job that asked for high school transcripts as well, it was clear they were trying to extract every proxy for IQ they could get out of me.)

Not on the CV itself, but do you have any public software repos? Hiring for applied math software development, it's always a big relief when we can see for ourselves that the applicant can actually code something complicated, can use version control properly, can collaborate, etc. It's not a deal-breaker if there's nothing (we have lots of applicants who haven't worked on anything big that wasn't kept secret by their PI or by ITAR or whatever) but even a toy single-author project is nice to be able to skim.

I have a heap of Project Euler solutions, many of which are reasonably complicated. I haven't used version control, and collaboration on past projects was mainly in meatspace.

What libraries/frameworks are you familiar (very very good) with? "Some C" and "Some python" is vague.

Your math/research background would be largely wasted (on paper) if you go into a generic software engineering role. Consider some kind of relatively math/stats-heavy programming-based field like Data Science or quantitative finance? A lot of math PhDs getting into those.

There are no such libraries. I've rarely used libraries besides math and itertools for Project Euler; it's more fun to write things from scratch. This is why I'm applying for internships rather than full-time positions.

I'm completely fine with the math background being wasted. If I were healthier, I'd have probably dropped out in favor of some kind of physical work when Covid first hit. I'd prefer not to relocate or work remotely, and there are only a few plausible employers other than the university within driving distance.

it's more fun to write things from scratch

All fun and games until it isn't.

I don't mean to be insulting, but this is a very naive sentiment to hold. Real-world software (ones that people use) can use more than 20 different libraries, all of which are wildly different in functionality and are difficult to implement for people working in that specific field, forget people not in that field.

You are not going to write a web API, a database or a transformer model from scratch. But you can write software that interfaces with libraries/APIs that allows you to use 3 of those things in the same codebase, in a reasonable amount of time.

I'm completely fine with the math background being wasted.

How bad is your health?

Generic software engineering is boring. Way more boring for someone who got a math Ph.D., than you can imagine, it's grunt work most of the time. The math equivalent to being made to solve quadratic equations and do algebra all day, just 100s of problems of them.

No offense taken. I took up Project Euler two years ago, when grad school felt unbearable between some personal issues, Covid fanaticism, Zoom-based teaching, and figuring out that I wasn't good enough for number theory. (The last was always a possibility, it was just an extra layer of suck on top of the others). So I optimized for enjoyment. In fairness, the PhD program was for enjoyment to begin with - I'd gone into the master's with the goal of teaching community college and ended up liking pure math way too much. Now it's time to grow up.

Screwed lower back and pretty much all arm/hand joints. Chronic pain, now mostly manageable with NSAIDs and very light barbell squats.

Tedious work toward (hopefully) a useful goal for a non-woke employer will be a massive quality of life improvement.

Is there such a thing as taking tests fast or slow, separate from actual score? Throughout my academic career I finished every test I ever took freakishly fast, like everyone else is working and I'm sitting there for half an hour. This did not correlate with how in or others did on the test, if I tried to go back and change answers or edit I was as likely to score lower as higher. Friends who scored the same as me, consistently, took more time to finish.

Normally test taking speed correlates with intelligence, but it always felt like something else there.

I had a few of those. Answers well-memorized, methods well-drilled, and most importantly the test was actually on the topics of the course - something that was frequently not the case at my university. Take one look at the test, write down all the answers in half an hour, then sit there for an hour or ask to be permitted to leave while all my peers are still working away at their desks. Not something that happened to me with math tests, but frequently with CS tests.

Now, I am not a clever man. See https://www.buttersafe.com/2008/10/23/the-detour/. And I think it is in fact a small but significant degree of dumbness that allows me to just blow off the prospects of re-visiting my answers. Or maybe high time preference? Maybe I really don't want to waste an hour even if it might cost me some infinitesimal career advantage? In any case, I don't think it's necessarily intelligence.

I'm fairly certain it's not intelligence, through high school and law school friends who got the same scores consistently took longer.

I've sped through tests where I knew all the answers and I've sped through tests I was woefully unprepared for. For me it was just a matter about being confident about what I knew and what I didn't know. Aside from a quick double check at the end, no amount of head wracking was going to help me recall papers I hadn't read.

I think - It's just a combination of intelligence, smarter -> can do smart things faster, and the way specific people are randomly better at some tasks than other people. It isn't a separate thing from intelligence - consider how JvN was famously quick - but it's a thing you're better at in the same way someone can be better at math and another better at music composition even though both come from the same mechanisms and genes as 'intelligence' generally.

I would be very interested in this as well. The one thing I’ve heard is that you should be careful about changing MCQ answers of questions you’re not entirely sure about (and that isn’t down to simply working it out with the information given, like in a mathematics test), because there’s often some association below the level of conscious thought that’s pushing you to the initial answer.

It tended to be the MCQs that I finished in half the time most other people did; my pen grip is poor, so essay-questions tended to be agony as my hand starts to cramp half an hour to one hour in. I also tend to find more things to write when I get more time, is that not the same for you?

Edit:a word

because there’s often some association below the level of conscious thought that’s pushing you to the initial answer.

I don't like the conscious/subconscious distinction, but aside from that, you almost always can do extra work to either check an answer or rederive it in a different way, and changing answers based on that will improve your score. I always caught a few mistakes going back over problems.

I don’t really disagree, especially if you’re able to get more information. I think it’s more for knowledge questions that you have no solid clue on, go “I feel it’s C somehow”, then start doubting yourself afterwards for no solid reason.

The one thing I’ve heard is that you should be careful about changing MCQ answers of questions you’re not entirely sure about (and that isn’t down to simply working it out with the information given, like in a knowledge test), because there’s often some association below the level of conscious thought that’s pushing you to the initial answer.

I've argued this so many times with my wife about aesthetic choices. When we pick paint colors for the house, I stare at the rack at home depot until I pick a color, then we stick with it. I also forbid changing outfits after one has gotten dressed, they always get worse not better. There's something below the surface that will make the perfect choice obvious! You make one decision and then stick with it and never think about it again. Given, that's also how I got married to start with.

But it seems like that wouldn't apply as much to the LSAT.

I had an extremely similar experience, but it’s worth noting that my mother insisted- over my own objections- that I be in the extended-time-accommodations group for major tests.

No, I don’t have any learning disorders(although I do have poor penmanship, it does not reach the threshold for dysgraphia), nor are their any reasons that I should need or be entitled to accommodations. My mother was a school administrator and knew how to work the system, and wanted me to get extra time despite the lack of evidence it did anything, ever, other than causing boredom.

Often overlooked: test taking speed correlates with writing speed, like actual physical putting letters to paper. I think in my school days I probably spent 90% of the time writing and 10% of the time thinking of the answer. My penmanship was just that poor.

My penmanship was just that poor.

Same here. Surprisingly I did well in English despite writing slowly compared to most (I wrote 6 pages per paper in my final exams while others wrote 12).

There's no good reason you should do worse after going back and reviewing answers. More time to think should always be better, ceteris paribus. The only explanation I can think of would be if you're biased toward assuming your initial answer was wrong (e.g. because you doubt your own intelligence or doubt your test taking abilities) and so you consistently talk yourself into changing answers you shouldn't change.

What I found when studying for LSAT was that frequently I changed an answer from correct to incorrect when I went back. Typically after a section there were 2-3 I was unsure of.

I developed a rule that I would only change the answer if I could construct basically a logical statement that proves another answer was correct. When that happened changes were generally from incorrect to correct.

It's not that I always did worse, it's that it was as likely I'd do worse as I'd do better. At a certain point more time isn't helpful, in a closed book exam room setting time is only helpful up to some point where you've done all the work and extracted all the knowledge from your brain. I seem to hit that point much faster.

Can you be more specific about the type of test you're talking about? I initially envisioned a g-loaded multiple-choice test like the SAT, but what you're describing sounds more like a long-form written answer test based on subject matter knowledge. As another commenter pointed out, maybe you're just a fast writer/typist?

As someone who has always been an extremely fast test taker (and a consistently high-scoring test taker), I still struggle to think of situations where more time would not be beneficial for me. Unless the test is pure regurgitation of memorized lists, or unless the test is so easy that you're scoring close to 100% on the initial pass, having more time to review and refine your answers should tend to result in a higher score.

I still struggle to think of situations where more time would not be beneficial for me.

"Solve this math question" where you don't actually know how to do all of it. More time won't help when you lack some of the fundamental knowledge required.

If you literally have no clue how to do it, then I can see how more time would not be helpful. But I wouldn't consider that being a "fast test taker" I would consider that simply being unprepared for the test.

In my experience as someone who majored in physics and minored in math, there is almost always some way to use additional time productively on math tests, even if you're stumped by a problem. Re-write the problem in a different form and see if it looks more familiar. Change the coordinate system and see if it makes things easier. Try out various mathematical tools/techniques and see if they work.

I mean just set the time period to thousands of years, and eventually your descendants will develop new maths?

Everything. SAT, LSAT, ASVAB, Grade school math, high school calc, undergrad econ, law school fed courts. Been perpetually true. Essay, multiple choice, hard, soft. Selective college, gen pop at a public school.

Has anyone read the new ig4 vaccine study + theorizing, described in these articles?

https://www.rintrah.nl/the-trainwreck-of-all-trainwrecks-billions-of-people-stuck-with-a-broken-immune-response/

https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/booster-caused-immune-tolerance-explains

More effort than this please.

Its the small scale thread

My mistake! Warning rescinded.

You know how every week there's a new "racist, homophobic hate crime", or "beloved tv star Guy Dickinson accused of disgusting sex crimes", or "latest: republicans literally genociding poor refugees to own the libs", but if you look into it for a few hours, or just wait a month, it was just not true - that hydra head crumbles to dust, only to be replaced by five more when you turn around?

The same is true of "vaccine sterilizing your ovaries with lipid nanoparticles", "blood clots killing millions", or "covid destroying the immune system", or a thousand others. The first dozen times I saw something, I looked into it, but that was two years ago. And it's from both sides! Unvaxxed sperm's left-wing mirror is amateur virologists on twitter speculating about virus-induced organ-failure because the hateful neoliberal right-wing won't let us enter our third year of lockdowns.

tl;dr I’m not worried

The simple reason vaccination correlates with mortality is that vaccination correlates with age. (Insert caveats about youth vaccination tradeoffs here.) Last I heard vaccination was still protective against hospitalization and mortality from C19, which seems the most relevant metric here, tho I’m happy to update if you have new data.

Vaccine protection has been fading since V1, but my priors are that immune evasion is more important than diminishing immune response. But… mRNA vaccines are brand spanking new, so we don’t know fully understand their limitations and possibilities fully. If mRNA approaches linger and cause a different type of immune response than traditional vaccines then maybe we can’t use them for longer term protection. Or, maybe we can use this vector to inhibit certain types of autoimmunity; a cure for rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis would be tremendous. It’s still very early days so I take quite seriously the possibility that mRNA vaccines have serious problems, but the stuff I’ve seen to date, including the links above, have yet to convince me of this thesis.

Merry Christmas, everyone. So, what are you reading?

I'm starting Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State. From skimming it, it looks like it touches on lots of contemporary things.

I'm attempting The Wandering Inn, currently a few chapters into the first arc.

So far, comparing it to other web fiction such as Wildbow I've read... not terribly impressed. It feels like a generic isekai-with-an-RPG-interface, 1D protagonist and forced le funnies included. If the writing gets noticeably better, let me know.

On the whole, I'd say the first book is very good, but every book afterwards is better. Also, the scope of the first book is mostly Liscor and some nearby places, but much more of the broader world is introduced in the second book.

One of the things pirateaba does well might be called "character development from the audience's perspective." You're often introduced to a character and develop the usual first impressions, but your opinion of him may change quite a bit over time for various reasons--you get a second perspective on the character from a different person; you get a part of a chapter from his viewpoint, showing how he thinks; or he makes an unexpected decision that clarifies his priorities. Everyone is complicated on their own terms; it's just that you aren't introduced to all the layers at once.

Erin is no exception to this pattern--the first view you get of her is heavily impacted by the fact that she's trying to cope with being isekai'd, and it's hard. Once she finds her feet a bit, different aspects of her character come to the fore. Much much later, another character from the first book describes Erin as "a puddle that you stepped into and began drowning in." She's got some excellent qualities, and other things she's bad at, but she makes some mistakes even where she's strongest, and her limitations really do constrain her options. Erin does use humor as a coping mechanism sometimes, but both she and especially the series as a whole have a surprisingly large emotional range.

It's hard to give much detail without hitting significant spoilers; there are a subreddit and a wiki that are very good, but you'll run into spoilers pretty much immediately, so I would stay away for now. If you've got any particular questions, I'd be happy to respond.

1D protagonist and generic isn't what I remember about it at all, so I'm sure you won't regret sticking with it for a little longer. However it was incredibly long and the author evidently didn't care about any pace other than her own, so I never actually finished it. It switches from intensely emotional stretches to lulls as if there's no difference between the two in the author's mind.

I'm re-working my way through the Harry Potter series for the first time in about a decade.

Currently about halfway through Goblet of Fire and overcome with nostalgic love.

Her prose is pretty basic but the humor, imagination, and world-building are top-tier. As an adult looking back, you can really see the depth of the British influence on these books. Boarding school, dry humor, Dickensian names, some undertones of Arthur Conan Doyle mystery, etc.

I really hope that the controversy around her political views doesn't start to overshadow how incredible these books are. I already see it happening on Reddit whenever Harry Potter is brought up. People are starting to memory hole Harry Potter as if it wasn't one of the biggest cultural phenomenons of the past century.

I “read” the Jim Dale audiobooks last year, and I was impressed by the YA dystopia in books 5-7. The banality of bureaucratic evil punctuated by horrors for people who cross the powers that be, a governmental shift into pre-genocide policies, and a keen awareness that one’s mortal enemies have the levers of the ultimate power of the state.

As 2020 (the year of perfect hindsight) turned into “twenty-twenty won” and “twenty-twenty too” (yes, I’m referencing Meme Magic), I’ve become keenly aware of how realistic her scenario was.

world-building are top-tier.

Her world-building is in an interesting place to me. It's evocative, creative, interesting... but then falls apart the deeper you delve into it. I think she makes an understandable mistake of trying to go into more detail later (its what everyone wants to know!), and it just doesnt seem to work.

Kind of like Narnia, I suppose, except that C.S. Lewis doesn't feel the need to try to explain where Mr. Tumnus was doing his shopping, for the better.

It's clear from the start that the world building is non committal, she starts off with a lot of stuff she hadn't thought about following through on. Starting from the sorting hat and the houses, which are naturally one of the coolest parts of the world, but Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are basically pointless from the beginning.

Hermione obviously should have been a Ravenclaw and Ron and Neville obviously should have been Hufflepuff. Making Gryffindor basically the "you have the guts to matter" house is silly. Making the smartest and most loyal characters avoid the houses for smart and loyal people makes those houses obvious downgrades.

I wouldn't worry about that. My nieces are nephews are all becoming obsessed with Harry Potter and the parents are very happy about it.

Roald Dahl was antisemitic and kids still read his books. They're still being adapted into plays and films too.

I agree that the books are superb. Rowling has a real ability to add 'colour' to her world. Like the weird currency or the every flavour beans. Small things like that make it a much richer experience.

You Suck At Cooking by the YouTuber who runs the eponymous channel. Since I met my reading goals this year, I decided to reward myself with something light and silly.

Finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Enthralling despite the brutal subject matter, it had this kind of meditative cinematic quality. Probably half the allusions and references were over my head, but the stark account of events cut with poetic landscape paintings hit the spot. Days later I'm still turning over some of the chapters in my head.

If you want to specifically have some of the possible meanings of the allusions pointed out, I can recommend "Notes on Blood Meridian", see https://www.amazon.de/-/en/John-Sepich/dp/0292718217 .

I read it about four years ago. It is fantastic. I liked it much better than The Road. It is also the hardest book I've ever read, but I'm not a native English speaker, so that might be why.

Ben Nichols made an album inspired by it, but I feel like it completely misses the mark. I listened to the soundtrack for The Revenant a lot while reading it. It just captures the feeling of dread and despair so well.

If you have any thoughts on the ending, I would love to hear them. I've read a few interpretations online, but they are not really in line with my own understanding and I didn't find them very convincing either.

I like the Nichols album. Not for listening to it while reading, dear god, no, but I like it just as its own thing. A tribute to the book; not a soundtrack.

As for the ending, I have my thoughts on it, yes. And I'd like to type them out, but I fear I don't have the time right now. Here's the very short version, please excuse me if I fail to make sense:

  • The book is nominally and thematically about things reaching their meridian, i.e., the highest point, from which they must necessarily go down towards their ending. Many individuals and groups in the book have their high point or aristeia, then decline and end, usually painfully so. Even more others have already ended, and all we hear of is their bones or leftovers or not even that but only the narrator's speculation.

  • The kid is born for violence, and seemingly goes towards his own violent meridian together with the Glanton Gang, but then rejects this trajectory and selects a different one. For decades the man just wanders, an illiterate with his bible, a refugee from violence who yet attains some triumph, a different meridian, by managing to live in peace against his own nature and former trajectory for so long a time. Then he witnesses the slaughter of the pilgrims, hopes in vain to save the old woman, kills again even if in self-defence, and suddenly finds himself back on his old trajectory, but not on the ascent he was on as the Kid, and nowhere near the Meridian, but already at the very end, at which the Judge simply collects him as a matter of fact.

  • The post-digger striking sparks is the very earliest beginning of a different such arc. McCarthy often writes of carrying the fire, and the Glanton gang were in their ascendancy associated with fires, but here the fire is in its infancy - a spark, the smallest form of fire. The book followed one arc to its meridian and decline, and in doing so passed over the remains of many older arcs, and here we are given the image that even as all the arcs we followed joined the corpses and ruins, new ones yet begin.

Don't get me wrong, I like the album as well. I've been fond of Ben Nichols vocals ever since I heard the credits song to Take Shelter.

I pretty much agree with your take, except I don't think the man is at the end of his violent trajectory when he meets the judge in the bar.

I read the last chapter again, and what I was thinking of specifically was what went down in the outhouse after they meet and the dancing bear is killed. It is very vague, and some interpretations I've seen believes the Judge literally eats the Man and others that he just kills him. I don't really like either. I perceive the Judge as someone who the members of the gang places their guilt of their terrible deeds upon. The judge is the personification of the cruelty that every man is capable of. When the Man sees the Judge at the bar, it says

"He wore a round hat with a narrow brim and he was among every kind of man, herder and bullwhacker and drover and freighter and miner and hunter and soldier and pedlar and gambler and driver and drunkard and thief and he was among the dregs of the earth in beggary a thousand years and he was among the scapegrace scions of eastern dynasties and in all that motley assemblage he sat by them and yet alone as if he were some other sort of man entire and he seemed little changed or none in all these years."

You are right, that the Kid is born for violence and has been running from his violent tendencies personified as the judge.

After the bear is killed it says that some of the patrons are looking for the little girl who was crying over the dead bear as she is nowhere to be found. I take that as when the man enters the outhouse where the naked judge is waiting for him, he is consumed by the judge metaphorically speaking and kills the little girl in there.

The Kid is not a reliable narrator. There are multiple accounts of children ending up dead and it is strongly implied that the judge abuses and kills them, but my interpretation is that it is the kid who does it, but he absolves himself by letting the judge be responsible.

I don't know if it makes much sense and it might change when I read it again some day as most of the book is not very clear in my memory.

I think this requires a fair bit of reinterpretation of the story's events. I wondered about it while reading, but ultimately rejected it.

Evidence for: The Judge is more often seen counselling the gang, encouraging them, teaching them, but not seen committing the deeds himself. We see the aftermath and assume he is responsible. He is almost inhuman, impossibly skilled, knowledgeable, strong. His being the personification of evil/violence/war/his philosophy, he certainly doesn't seem real.

Evidence against: But on the other hand, he does act a fair bit himself and can't easily be removed. I'm not sure how to reassess scenes like the stand-off with Toadvine, Brown, Tobin, and the Kid toward the end without the Judge there as a real character. Holden negotiates on behalf of the gang with some of the more cultured/learned characters in the story. He teaches the gang how to make gunpowder, etc. Sure, these events could be waved away, but.. who did it then? Is that another aspect of Glanton's personality? If so, why is it the Judge the more intellectual, rational part rather than the violent, impulsive part that is still attributed to Glanton.

I thought it worked better if he was a real, though possibly supernatural character. The confrontation at the end is the two of them committing to their respective philosophies. The Judge again lectures the man on war and the way of the world. The man again rejects it. "You aint nothin".

The Judge will have him anyway, but not willingly.

IMO it's worth taking another look at the opening quotes of the book.

Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time.

PAUL VALÉRY

It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in misery and lost as if in sorrowing. There is no sorrowing. For sorrow is a thing that is swallowed up in death, and death and dying are the very life of the darkness.

JACOB BOEHME

Clark, who led last year’s expedition to the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, and UC Berkeley colleague Tim D. White, also said that a reexamination of a 300,000-year-old fossil skull found in the same region earlier showed evidence of having been scalped.

THE YUMA DAILY SUN

The theme these suggest to me is the following: Violence and death, for lack of a better term, are an essential component of life. Rejecting them will not free you from them. They're coming for you no matter what. Let's take a look at No Country For Old Men:

He did close his eyes. He closed his eyes and he turned his head and he raised one hand to fend away what could not be fended away. Chigurh shot him in the face.

Of course Chigurh is not an otherworldly entity on the same level as the Judge, but both characters seem to stand with one foot in the mundane and with the other in the supernatural. Both bring death, in various ways. Both expound on philosophy. Neither can be stopped. For all the fight he puts up, the only reason why Llewelyn Moss manages to not get killed by Chigurh is because others get to him first. For all the geographic and philosophical distance the Kid tries to put between himself and the Judge, the Judge still gets him in the end.

Here's another from BM:

Have you got a gun? he said. A gun? A gun. Have you got a gun. Not on me I aint. Brown pulled a small fiveshot Colt from his belt and pitched it to him. He caught it and stood holding it uncertainly. You got one now. Now shoot the nigger. Wait a goddamn minute, said Owens. Shoot him, said Brown. Jackson had risen and he pulled one of the big pistols from his belt. Owens pointed the pistol at him. You put that down, he said. You better forget about givin orders and shoot the son of a bitch. Put it down. Goddamn, man. Tell him to put it down. Shoot him. He cocked the pistol. Jackson fired.

You can't get away from it. You just plain can't. Whether you're born for violence like the Kid or thrust into it like Owens, it's there. Death is there. It's the fundamental stuff of the universe. Run or fight or close your eyes in denial, the end is the same.

I strongly feel that this is one of McCarthy's central points. It makes no sense for the Judge to be an abstract position that can be adopted or rejected by regular humans, who then have all the agency. Whatever principle the Judge and Chigurh represent has agency of its own. It moves, it acts, one way or another you must engage it - and you can't just refuse to be overcome by it.

The Judge must be a physical actor to represent the agency of this primordial force.

I didn't mean to imply that the judge isn't real. I do think he is an actual person in the gang and possibly the worst of them all. I'm just not sure everything can be ascribed to him. It is not easy to reconcile and maybe even impossible on a second reading.

soundtrack for The Revenant

Yeah, that fits. I thought of Earth, and was surprised to learn they'd also done an inspired-by album. The subtitle, "Printing in the Infernal Method", is from William Blake, which recalls the film Dead Man.

thoughts on the ending

Assume you're referring to the epilogue? I also found it perplexing and looked online for interpretations.

One: "Perhaps the digger is a figure for the novelist himself, striking fire out of the dead holes of history, bearing witness, though it is not at all clear that those following understand."

but that sort of meta-commentary feels unnecessary, self-centered, and incongruous with the preceding novel. I dunno. Maybe?

Others: That the post digger represents the coming of civilization and the end of the bloody, evening redness, (Epilogue: "In the dawn"), or that it represents the opposite - the continuation of that philosophy after the night.

I honestly don't know. I think the fact that so many interpretations disagree so wildly means it was intentionally left ambiguous. Like you, none of the ones I read seemed right.

I've never heard of Earth, but I'm gonna give them a listen.

I was actually thinking more of what happens after the judge and the man meets in the end. You can see my reply to Southkraut.

I am also kind of lost on the epilogue, but I think you are right that it is intentionally ambiguous.

Have almost finished that myself. Some really beautiful writing and occasional interesting philosophy, maybe a tad repetitive at times.

Finished that a few months back. Fantastic, fantastic book.

One thing that I didn't realize before actually picking it up was how much time he spends on the landscape descriptions.

It's probably 40-50% of the book, and while I didn't know most of the plants and geological formations he described it was still totally gripping and reminiscent of the best kind of Romantic-era writing.

After a few months away from books I've started reading again. My wife bought me and her two copies of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karasamov so we could read it together this winter. Barely started it but already enjoying having conversations with her about the characters and the Author's life.

I also recieved Asimov's Foundation trilogy in hardcover for christmas. Big sci-fi fan, so finally giving Asimov a try is going to be fun. The beginning is already thrilling, even though Asimov's style is pretty dull.

The robot stories actually get tied back in, the further you get into the Foundation series. Reading them in publication order should be possible through your public library and a Wikipedia bibliography.

Don't worry, Foundation soon becomes bombastic. But it also loses focus long before the end. Uneven but great.

I'm reading Fulfillment by Alec MacGillis, an analysis of "Amazon’s impact on the wealth and poverty of towns and cities across the United States." I love this kind of book about regional economics and the changing nature of work. Well-written and particularly significant to me as a Midwesterner

I listened to his podcast with Lex Friedman, was interesting.

I’m thinking of jumping into Neal Asher’s Polity series. I’ve heard good thing here and elsewhere.

Is there an app that lets you listen to any arbitrary song on your phone and sing along to it, and it grades you on how well you hit each note?

What you're probably looking for is a "karaoke app with score," similar to the karaoke boxes here in Japan. Interestingly (to me) there are now fully automated hitori-kara or "solo karaoke" boxes where you can go alone, pay with your phone, and sit for an hour or more just singing to yourself (most likely these are used for practice sessions, but I am only speculating.)

I did a cursory lookup on PlayStore then realized you might be using an Iphone. In any case the likelihood that such an app exists is high.

Does the pronoun "you" in English playing quadruple role (2nd person singular subject, 2nd person singular object, 2nd person plural subject, 2nd person object) harm communication, or would it be better if in English the distinction between subject and object in pronouns wouldn't exist, given that in English nouns aren't declined according to subject/object but only by number (singular/plural) and possessive? But even then the question if creating a distinction between 2nd person singular and plural, as there is in 1st person (I/we) and in 3rd (he/they), is beneficial.

I've always thought that English could do with a second person plural, like 'vous' in French. Being able to distinguish between talking to a group and an individual in a group setting is very helpful.

Of course, language being what it is, English speakers have basically created alternatives out of necessity (y'all, youse, you guys etc). Give it a few hundred years and I'm sure we'll be using them as words in their own right.

In addition to its traditional usage by Southern Americans as well as black Americans from all over the country, "y'all" has recently (within the past 10 years) come into favor among upper-middle-class Americans who wouldn't have been caught dead using it a generation ago. These are most often woke young women who ostensibly prefer "y'all" over the previous preferred alternative, "you guys", because "you guys" is not gender-inclusive (no one seemed to care about that before). I think another contributing factor is getting the chance to sound more black - they feel uncomfortable with using the n-word while singing rap lyrics, so this is the next best thing.

Interestingly, one of the main distinctions between Ebonics and general southern English is that in Ebonics, y’all is the exact opposite of vous- it’s an informal or familiar pronoun not giving a specific statement on plurality. In general southern English it’s still generally plural, but can be much less familiar.

And of course in Louisiana French, the informal pronouns are ‘Tu’ and ‘vous-autre’, and ‘vous’ is reserved for figures that you can never, ever be on a first name basis with, but has no specific connotations of plurality.

Just thought all of that was interesting to note.

Are you saying that "y'all" can be used to refer to one person?

I've always heard y'all to refer to one person with all y'all is the plural form.

Yes. Particularly if the speaker is black.

In some contexts, yes, it's used as a sort of a formal or impersonal version of the 2nd-person singular. Especially in customer service contexts you'll sometimes hear a singular "y'all" as a sign of respectful distance between the speaker and the person being addressed.

(Note: my comment is referring to standard usage in Texas and isn't directly addressing the point above about black American vernacular).

At least by the members of my extended family in Texas, y'all is singular, all y'all, is plural.

“Ye” means “vous.” (O come all ye faithful). It never meant “the,” as in “ye olde castle.” We also had “wit,” which meant “me and exactly one other person.” We threw away perfectly good pronouns.

'Ye' is still used a lot in Ireland. Up north you'll hear words like 'yous' and 'yousens', Dubliners also have 'yis'.

Dump it into a low fee ETF. VTI is solid. Automatically have some of your paycheck go to your taxable brokerage. Max your tax advantaged vehicles first. If you don't have enough money after maxing your retirement accounts to also put money into taxable assets, make more money.

That gets you better risk adjusted outcomes than 95% of Americans.

IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE MARKET, THE SECRET IS NOT TRYING TO PREDICT IT

What?

I assume he means making positive EV but low (ideally 0) delta trades. Not sure how you'd do this without being a market maker, but maybe there's some clever strategy I'm not seeing.

Strongly against day trading. Do value investing if you must, but really, I suggest just trying to match the market with index funds. Investing should be boring!

I'd echo this and add to it with the following thought. When EVERYONE loses money, the government comes in with buckets of money to bail you out (see 2008, 2020) and the losses will be quickly recovered. But if YOU lose money, there will be no one to help.

Day trading isn't passive income, it's capital risk that you actively manage every day in the hope that you'll do better than an index fund. Real passive income would be something like buying the rights to a Christmas pop hit. You could then transform that to active income if you started promoting the record to induce more licensing and increased royalties, and hopefully the improved return would be worth more than if you spent the same time working more hours at your regular job.

Alternatively you could go for speculation (buy and hold assets), management (buy and rent out assets), gambling (stake capital on a binary outcome), banking (loan capital and charge interest, or trade capital for collateral), or bootstrap investing (create a business). There's very little that qualifies as truly passive.

It's corny but if you're a complete beginner try out Rich Dad Poor Dad for a basic introduction to financial literacy and avoid any memes about day trading, options, crypto and forex. It's probably a bit out of date now and not without its critics but it's a decent primer for further reading. MrMoneyMustache is (was?) the blogging era's inheritor of Rich Dad's paperback popularity but he always seemed to have at least as strong a focus on cutting costs against increasing income. Of course both of them could be said to have made a lot their money from writing, which is simply another bootstrap.

The point I'm getting at is that the stock market isn't the only option for passive income, and depending how you approach it it isn't even passive. But really what is?

Please please please do not follow this advice OP if you’re reading this. @bigtittygothgf. Rich Dad Poor Dad is not that good of a reference and there are much better resources out there.

Just read the Bogleheads wiki - it has everything you need to know (written by followers of the king of passive investing John Bogle) in a very simple easy to follow format.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

If you don’t like wiki’s please read this short 16 page introduction to passive investing:

https://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf

No disagreement, hence the caveats and the link to the wiki with its criticisms section. I read it once years and years ago. Glad it prompted some links to better resources as that one was the only book I could think of that wasn't the standard "come back after maxing out your tax efficient wrapped index traded funds".

I highly recommend reading through John Reed's criticism of Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Is (part-time) day trading a reasonable option if researched thoroughly enough?

People get paid full time salaries to thoroughly research a company enough to pull their fund a single digit YoY return for the investment. Most markets are efficient, so don't bother. You'd make far more money building some sort of business part time than you would trying to invest in stock. The market is in downturn anyway; you will probably lose money trying to make daily trades, unlike the last decade where you literally couldn't lose if you fed your dollars to a hampster.

Best advice I can give: find good companies and put your money in them. Small cap and micro cap are less efficient than large and medium cap, so you get lucky more often with those picks but they are also more volatile. Otherwise, try and find a market niche near you that isn't being filled and put your money towards that. Start a small business on the side and invest your money into that. You have more control over it's success than you do with a single share in COKE that you intend to sell 10 minutes later.

Worst advice I can give? Learn options trading, far more strategies for making money than simply trading straight stock. Lots of work, can be riskier, but higher rewards for your time. I don't recommend it though, it's like gambling but for the people at the blackjack table who think they can count cards.

I don't really have reading material. Find a textbook in personal finance and read it. Then read about how the Fed works and realize the cards are stacked against you, and invest with that in mind.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio

I'm planning to start one of these next year but have run into confusing information regarding how to handle taxes (on a taxable brokerage account, not an IRA).

Is it better for the completely lazy investor (me) to put the money into ETFs vs the index funds like VTSAX? I want to minimize any time spent dealing with paperwork or tax bullshit and it seems like index funds aren't as "set and forget" as I thought in that sense.

I'm not sure. I use index funds and there isn't anything I consider paperwork or tax bullshit. Vanguard sends me a simple form at tax time that gets added to my tax return and that's it.

ETFs are (slightly) more tax efficient than mutual funds and also more liquid; they also usually have lower fees. Most things generating a return in taxable accounts will trigger taxable events, but ETFs are about as simple as it gets: they'll issue dividends, but so do mutual funds. For VTI, most are qualified and they're small (~1.5%) anyway.

Day trading is a bad idea. The overwhelming majority of investors lose money.

How you invest the money depends on when you will need it. If you don't need the money in the next ten years or more, you a better off putting it in an index fund. Vanguard does the ones with the lowest fees.

Index funds can also be 'income' rather than 'accumulation'. This means that dividends are paid out as cash target than being reinvested in the shares that make up the fund. If you intend to spend the income from your savings (rather than just getting the pot) then this might be a better idea.

Index funds can also be 'income' rather than 'accumulation'.

How does this work if the investment is losing money? Are you then expected to put up more money to compensate for the loss?

The price of the shares can go up or down, which would bring the value of the fund up or down. But every quarter the dividend payments from the shares would be paid out to the fund holders. This is usually around 2% of the value of the fund, but obviously can be lower in a poor business environment.

An accumulation fund would just take these dividends and buy more shares with them.

I was curious about the Wonderlic test after seeing it referenced in a comment sometime this week, so I took a look. Is this practice website actually accurate to the content of the test? I found it really quite easy, some trouble with not being familiar with Imperial units and American coinage aside.

"Your score is 38 / 50"

42 out of 50 answered, 4 wrong.

In my defense, I was distracted by my child running and shouting all over the place.

And I misunderstood the "fold triangles into solid shape" questions entirely.

24/25, barely made it. It seems like it is very culturally dependent, though I have a hard time imagining anyone born in the USA scoring 10/25.

I got a bit annoyed at

What number comes next in the series, 31, 1031, 402, 16, ____?

which I ended up spending over a minute on (and still got wrong, though found the answer online).

Agree on both (had trouble with the America-centric questions, or with terminology I hadn’t seen before), yet that’s what’s being advertised - 20/50 is supposed to be roughly IQ = 100, and apparently there was a published thing in the 1980s which showed average scores for NFL players by position (ranging from 16 to 26). Other sites show averages for other professions, though unsourced; apparently nurses average 23 and chemists 31?

Just seems very low to me.

With 4 multiple choice answers, the expected result from random guessing would be 12.5. Get 10 answers right, randomly guess on the rest, and you're average.

I figure the time constraint is what kills people's points, but if you know that will be the limiting factor up front, you could just say make sure you stick to 10 seconds per question, guess on ones you don't know, and... almost certainly get above average? It's quite easy to game.

Alternatively, maybe these questions are easier than the actual test, or the knowledge it's testing is more widely known today than it was originally.

Scores of 10 or below in the wonderlic test are counted as ‘functionally illiterate’ rather than ‘low IQ’ for that reason.

This was the 25-question short version though, so I'd expect 10/25 to very roughly correspond to 20/50, with a significantly increased measurement error. 20/50 is supposed to be average.

Also crazy: the entire Jordan v. New London case was because a police department automatically rejected people for getting 28/50 or higher because they were too smart.

Ah, my mistake there then.

42/50, but I didn't know what to expect and didn't particularly care about the results. I knew I got about three questions wrong as soon as I clicked "next". The test itself looks pretty "grindable" to me. Vocabulary questions are not grindable beyond knowing what to expect (X is to Y is as what is to Z, similar-opposite-unrelated), but are the easiest, logical questions are grindable (I guess most "normies" fail the "A implies B, A is false, is B false?" question), maths questions are super grindable (there's a bunch of mental math tricks that people simply don't keep in their arsenal now that they actually carry a calculator with them everywhere, plus a bunch of "how to discard the obviously wrong answer" tricks). With a few cram sessions you could probably get people to reliably score five to ten points higher.

It's still a good proxy for intelligence. A couple of years ago I binged on YouTube USE math prep videos. USE is the combined HS graduation/college entry exam in Russia, and your score decides if you can get into the MSU or another prestigious university or not. Kids in the stream chat were super serious about cataloguing every possible shortcut to tackling the problems, and at first I was kinda disappointed by this approach, using raw brainpower sounded fairer.

But then I realized: you still need that raw brainpower to catalogue and store these tricks, to select the right one and apply it correctly. Yes, Alice that is even a bit smarter than Bob can get a lower score because Bob spent more time on exam prep, but is it really that bad? Why shouldn't we reward people that can demonstrate diligence and perseverance in addition to raw mathematical brainpower?

Why shouldn't we reward people that can demonstrate diligence and perseverance in addition to raw mathematical brainpower?

It depends on what job you are selecting for. College admissions are a hammer when they should be scalpels.

A rough example; Someone going to college for a math degree might be interested in Research Mathematics or becoming an Actuary.

For the former, you should probably heavily weigh raw mathematical brainpower more. For the latter, you should weigh conscientiousness more.

These two people with radically different brain structures (IMO) and expectations from their future peers; but are made to take the same tests/exams.

Tangentially, if you are of the former type, you might not like the latter for various visceral reasons.

I went to college for Electrical Engineering. I was passionate about it and rarely ever "studied" in any flashy way. Then there were the kids with flashcards and fancy colored notes and whatnot. They often got better grades than me, but were often "worse" engineers. They sucked at programming, didn't know anything outside of the books, could not derive things from first principles if not explicitly mentioned in class, etc.

Those people should be working at powerplants, I should be working at a startup that makes robots.

DNF. Got bored around question 24 and quit. I wonder how some football players manage to score lower than 10/50. Maybe they get bored easily like me.

More likely because they were borderline illiterate.

The wonderlic is not a pure IQ test because it presupposes literacy, basic cultural knowledge, etc. people who read on a 1st or 2nd grade level despite being adults will do poorly on it regardless of if the reason is poor education or low IQ.

And there’s lots of football players who read on an early elementary school level.

43/50 time was a major factor in mistakes, several I knew immediately I had gotten it wrong when I clicked next.

I didn't find it that easy. I was only able to get to question 38 before the time ran out and my score was 34/50. Of course, the questions were easy, but some of the ones that required doing a bunch of arithmetic in my head took a while.

I didn't know it would be that hard to finish in time, so I took a break to go to the bathroom and get a glass of water which cost me some time. I'm also a bit sleed deprived and hung over.

I've had my intelligence tested much more thoroughly than this and was put at the 99th percentile.

48/50. Had a few guesses due to running out of time, so easily could have had a 45/50. Either way, this test is judging people who’s skill lies in catching an oval ball and beating the crap out of each other. The test is meant to be easy and many quite good players have scored very poorly (thinking about Frank Gore in particular).

Got 21/25 while watching tv playing on my phone. So a 42.

But half the people here probably have perfect SAT scores so I’m assuming that’s above average here but well above average everywhere else. My guess is the average NYT reader would be around 32.

I got 48/50 on the test. It was pretty similar in difficulty to the practice CFAT, the aptitude test for the Canadian military that I'm planning to apply to soon. I think most Canadians/Americans are pretty bad at mental math, since it's a skill that very rarely comes up, but I've always enjoyed mental math and would often do homework problems mentally even if a calculator was available.

The American education system also tends to strongly discourage students in ‘average tracks’ as I would call them- so not remedial or GT- from ever doing mental math.

Wonderlic will always sound like a make-up brand to me. "This Wonderlic eyeshadow will pair perfectly with your houndstooth suit from Jane Street!"

with your houndstooth suit from Jane Street

I love my new camlhair suit from them.

It sounded like some sort of brand of rainbow sprinkles to me for some reason!

The full 50 question test is supposed to be completed in 12 minutes, a short practice test would need to be done in less time than that. Keep in mind it's probably timed for marking a scantron page, too.

No, it is not. I have taken it and it is meant to be easily graded and interpreted by a hiring manager. No scantron is involved.

Yes. Bear in mind that, like most motteizeans, you’re probably well above average in IQ, so it should be easier for you.

The wonderlic test is more about finishing questions- it’s a timed test and in practice most people do not finish- than about correct answers. It’s a proxy for IQ score for average Americans and doesn’t have much utility outside of them, and like many proxies, tends to break down at the tail ends(famously it has no ability to distinguish low IQ from actually literally retarded- although, it doesn’t seem like conventional IQ tests are great at doing that either).

I got 48/50 while having to look up what exactly a nickel or a dime was or how many ounces were in a pound, or having to think back to what other historical events were near the Declaration of Independence (before realizing that the question gave other dates that were obviously wrong), which I assume most Americans wouldn’t need to. I suppose it’s the typical mind fallacy at work, but I was astonished to read that the average IQ=100 person would score 20.

Most questions are indeed quite easy, the challenge mainly comes from processing speed - quite a few people will simply take too long to puzzle through word problems, or not understand how to do quick estimations on the mathy questions.

exactly. the speed is what makes it hard and is why the scores are normally distributed. otherwise there would be no way to discriminate ability beyond basic proficiency of math/verbal.

Huh.

I’m overestimating how quick people are on their feet then, it seems.

38/50. Yeah, it was easy. Not American but Im used to imperial units but the coinage one I got wrong.

It shouldn't include GK questions, though. I liked the inclusion of mental math, tries to trip you up with multiple-tenths of a fraction, but the correct answers are obvious.

I actually got tripped up by what was meant by “tenths place” (or something similar), because I’d never seen that before!

I have had to take "aptitude" tests before as part of job application processes and some of the types of questions in that practice test are familiar to me (I am not American either).

How large and serious is the opposition to US support of Ukraine in the republican party and it's grassroots supporters?

In the party? The House vote for the $40B aid package last May was 149-57 in favor, and support is probably going to be lower going forward. Among the grassroots? It's about 50-50, and dropping quickly, with the most unwavering support ("for as long as it takes, even if American households have to pay higher gas and food prices as a consequence") down to 33% among Republicans.

Trawling through conservative forums I still see a lot of moral support for Ukraine, but I also see a lot of the "these big bills are how the government-military-industrial complex launders money" thinking that I used to think was a solidly left-wing position. The median right-wing belief today seems to be approaching "Okay, the tankies are wrong to support Russia, but is it really our job to get involved?", and it really does seem like a funhouse mirror of what you'd have expected from the two sides of the culture war 60 years ago.

But how about the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 90s? Bill Clinton was gung ho for intervention, while Senate Republicans mostly tended to the position "this conflict is literally in Europe's backyard, why can't they solve the local problem, since logistics couldn't be easier?"

Republican foreign policy at a grassroots level tends to be borderline isolationist, unless there is a clear threat to American interests.

I think it has a lot to do with how Dems do absolutely zero to explain any of this or gain any bipartisan support (or at least I do not notice any outreach effort). I mean, they do it like that all over the map - "shut up, you deplorable bigot, you are a Putin's asset!" is heard much more than "let me lay out the argument for why it may be in our mutual interests to do this". But in this particular case it is really not clear for people why they must sacrifice to support Ukraine, especially if so many of their other interests are already has been sacrificed. There are good arguments, including those that the Red Tribe would accept if given the chance, but nobody from the left that I have seen takes any serious effort to do this. And as such, it gets more and more painted as a Blue tribal behavior. Especially after Blues have already done so many things under the guise of "it's an emergency, no time to discuss or explain anything" - and now they are doing the same again. So people are viewing it as a pattern and develop an allergy to any measures done in this way.

Surprising gop support is so low. 10 years ago gop would be solid support.

The fundamental issue is the war people are now the GOP’s cultural enemies. And they’ve been lied to too much by the “expert” class. The fundamental issue is Liz Cheney (and her dad) have played the GOP base too many times and groups have trouble thinking for themselves and disassociating an issue from the people who run the programs. So in many ways it’s surprising how strong support for the war is in the GOP since the people who have fucked them the most are the neocons.

Probably doesn't help that the Biden family has some corrupt ties with Ukraine.

Has anyone used an iPad mini?

I currently have an Android tablet (10 inch screen) but it's a bit big for my liking. I'm considering getting the iPad due to its smaller size.

I would mainly be using it for reading ebooks and watching videos, so nothing requiring much power. I've previously tried a smaller Android tablet but it was so slow as to be useless.

I've been a user ever since I got my hands on the original iPad mini. IMO it's by far the best tablet out there: Large enough for web browsing, watching videos / youtube and reading, yet small enough to hold with one hand without growing tired and also fits a jacket pocket. I've always managed to break mine (who'd have thought glass displays are allergic to hard floor tiles / asphalt...) before they've gotten outdated enough to be too slow to use (generally requiring 5+ years or longer based on how well my original iPhone SE still works day to day).

Instead of going down the path of tablets I have switched to two in one laptops. I like the horsepower and relative flexibility of a full-fledged laptop but also enjoy the touch input and mobility of a tablet. The only downsides I've experienced so far is worse battery life than a dedicated tablet, the general jank of Windows 11, and the increased weight of having a full computer instead of just the tablet.

For my use case as musician, I've found it very effective with a pen for notating and using it for rehearsals without having to lug heavier and bulkier folders around and to keep music organized.

It's certainly serviceable, for your use case I can't think of any significant flaws except for how close it's priced to the base ipad, which isn't an issue since you put a premium on the smaller display anyway.

And these days you don't really need iTunes much either, or at least I haven't needed it in my year or two of owning an Air.

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