MikePlacid

Could not gisagree more. Nobody can harm me much by knowing my ITIN. But government surely can torture me in prison by depriving me of my favorite ice cream brand. I have a right to keep it private!

to silence her.

That’s a lie. That’s not silencing. That’s taking back some money if she speaks.

I know a guy who is sentenced to 15 years in jail for posting a YouTube video about the Ukrainian government. That’s silencing.

there is absolutely no denying that

Famous last words. https://t.me/kcpn2014/3890 The [Russian] Analytical Center of KCPN has conducted a large-scale study of the [Ukrainian] hidden military infrastructure, which provides Ukrainian forces with stable communications along the entire line of contact. The focus is on the “BakhmutTelecom” project — a military mobile network operator (3G and 4G) that was deployed practically under our noses back in 2023. We often attribute many of the enemy’s successes to Starlink, although in reality these are the result of organizational, not technological, advantages.

The civilian cover for “BakhmutTelecom” is J&Y LLC, which in fact serves as infrastructure for purely military tasks. The network comprises around 2,500 towers, 36 or 50 meters tall, arranged in three tiers. They are interconnected via underground fiber-optic cables and microwave relay links.

Is there really SW that's limited to (Linux) ARM and not x86?

MacOS? (hides)

Is it not enough to add to your prompt “use memory efficiently”?

Programmers and their managers need food. And other nice things.

If left alone I can argue with myself indefinitely.

These days if something isn’t labeled as Russian propaganda it’s probably not true.

Grok makes a better, more coherent text when asked to explain the steps involved in money laundering based on this article.

It’s entirely possible that creating a brain capable of controlling itself is more costly (in an evolutionary sense, measured by the number of generations needed to achieve this goal) than equipping a brain with the ability to check itself by communicating with others.

Nevertheless, some brains lack even that ability, gravitating instead toward echo chambers where everyone shares the same views, so no mutual checks are possible.

I would rather watch a black screen than a majority of YouTube ads. Because:

- they are for a product that I just bought x 20 times;

- they are for a product that I do not need x 20 times;

- “we know you are old, so do this stupid thing… (have I said “x 20 times”?)

- “we know you are rich, so do that stupid thing…

And so it goes.

I see around 80% of videos on X (Twitter) to be from TikTok originally. Probably because TikTok allows you to save - and so to spread - videos you like but X doesn’t.

I simply clarified the current state of affairs without saying a single negative word about it. Still, you rushed to defend it. It appears (just my guess) that you recognize flaws in the situation and feel compelled to justify it to yourself, don’t you?

As an engineer, I see both the advantages and drawbacks in what I described. The benefit is greater comfort and improved socialization for those who need it. The downside—and perhaps a critical one—is that a country neglecting its brightest students with no state support risks falling behind globally. That might not matter if we had no international rivals. But do we truly lack them?

teachers are overworked to squeeze out performance for the 90%, and cases like hers are the ones that fall through the cracks.

However, the opposite is true, at least in California. Special needs students receive exceptional attention, often double that given to others. Each has a tailored written plan, unique to their needs, along with a detailed report reviewed by a team of specialists at the end of every trimester, significantly adding to the workload.

Meanwhile, exceptionally bright students receive no extra focus whatsoever.

I lived in a country where housing was provided for free (the Soviet Union), but monetization is so far superior—you wouldn’t believe the difference.

Oh, the shipping! Now, from the customer’s point of view.

My youngest worked in a furniture chain over the summer. And they got sent a big, heavy furniture set from the central warehouse, which the store actually didn't want. So, they sent it back. The problem was that the system didn't allow them to say: please, don't send this again. And the non-natural intelligence at the central base decided to send this set again. When my youngest started working - they were loading this set back for the seventh time.

Why 'loading'? Because no one could find a way in the program to send this ill-fated set back on the same truck that brought it. No one, except my youngest, that is. He managed to find the combination of keys and checkboxes that allowed them not to unload the unwanted set and ship it back on the same truck - and he immediately got a raise.

I suspect the set is still traveling. But now they only load-unload it at the central warehouse.

If you select the sane option ("other"), you get to explain to technically inept bean counters why you did so.

Tell them it’s for preserving diversity in the field.

When we presented our pediatrician with our third child who could urinate in a sink on verbal command at just six months old, she remarked, "We should write an article for a medical journal!" We explained that such an article would never get published because it's not new information; most of Europe begins potty-training at around six months. Delaying this valuable skill until the age of 3-4 years is an enormous waste of resources - but still the whole country was insisting on doing it, don’t know about now.

I already predicted that changing the number would prove to be either impossible, or have all sorts of cascading effects, ultimately terminating in official records no longer recognizing that the car is mine.

Oh my, I can feel that pain. Here’s what happened last week, caused by a change in… SSN? no - in our home address.

My wife earned some unemployment benefits three years ago, which were put on a plastic card issued by The Bank. She finally found time to access the funds (she’s a middle school teacher), but when she went to The Bank, they said they didn’t have the money anymore—they’d sent it back to California. So, she called California. They were like, “No problem, we’ll send you a check. Oh, you have a new address? Let’s change it. Wait, what is happening… oh, now your account is locked, it says: potential fraud”… They needed a supervisor to unlock it, which took 20 minutes. The supervisor unlocked the account, but because it was marked as potential fraud, they couldn’t mail a check anymore. Instead, they linked the account back to The Bank (20 more minutes), and she had to go there in person with her ID to get it checked.

So, she went to The Bank. But you can’t just walk in The Bank and show your ID to get it checked; you need an appointment. And to get an appointment, you need an account with The Bank. But her California benefits account? Oh, it is marked as potential fraud - it didn’t count. So, they spent 20 minutes to open a new account for her. She got an appointment for later that day, in 4 hours, went back to The Bank, and had her ID checked (yes, the second time in one day - they need to check your ID to open an account too).

Did she get the money then? Of course not—the account is still flagged as potential fraud. No cash possible. Call California again. California agreed to mail the check to the new address, probably by some oversight.

So my question is: do these “potential fraud” flags in databases ever die a natural death?

With some hope, sincerely, a Husband of a Potential Fraudster.

…the PCBs fabricated in China … waiting for the delivery

Is it that bad already? Last time I’ve checked there were a lot of US options for 3d printing. No for PCB fabrication?

I do not think you need a philosophical degree to handle this. A law degree is enough. Just add “legally” before “exist” and everything makes its perfect legal sense again.

Indeed, since this person… I mean message - is not in the list of ones legally allowed to exist, you can’t hire it, can’t fire it, the only thing you can do with it legally - is to kill it. But that does not prevent you from searching its pockets first and making use of its valuables.

(Sorry for the gallows humor).

I would rather prefer a round clock design: mathematically it’s linear but more stylish and simpler to implement (no reverse movement needed). But then you’d probably want to mount it vertically))

There was a Mini C (C subset) compiler written in Mini C and running on a Russian version of z80 in the beginning of 80’s. It was small and very observable (I’ve changed the code generator there to produce code for IBM/370 - and so we’ve bootstrapped this compiler to a Russian IBM/370 to run some games written in Mini C))

Not sure if such a thing is much better than assembly language in industrial context: it would speed coding up, but you would need to check the results thoroughly. Only the real test can tell if there is a time / quality benefit in sum.

How to resist commenting on "Darling, would you mind terribly if I spent £1000 on Kazakhstani emoji domains?" ? ))

Allow each reader to have his own moderation. Basically, I want to be able to enforce 3 rules: 1. There are people I want to read always. 2. There are people I want to read never. 3. I want some random sample from all other people, in proportion from 1:1 to 1:1000, depending on my current mood.

The server should keep my list and serve me text according to it. Also it should allow readers to exchange such lists. If I trust some guy - he could serve as my personal moderator, but a mild one compared to the current regime - my list #1 will never be interfered with. Cheap?

boring similar photos I've probably already saw like 100 times from a slightly different angle

I’ve started a blog about my summer house in the Sierra Nevada foothills as a way to stay connected with friends and family. Suddenly, I have around 100 subscribers… from Russia, as the blog is in Russian. Although it may not feature anything particularly extraordinary, such as the sky, plants, and animals, these things remain captivating to me. The ever-changing scenery, including the sky, apricot and lilac trees, raccoons, cats, and deer, seems not boring to my readers too. It’s incredible to think that a hundred people in Russia are concerned alongside me when a stray cat returns after my absence in California… We also laugh together on California politics but not very often.

The blog is hosted on Telegram, not Reddit though - for obvious reasons.

Humanity has never needed billionaires and only in abstract theory does their existence benefit the rest.

I’ve witnessed how decisions are made in a country with no billionaires - they were made by Politburo guys. I’ve also witnessed how decisions are made by Elon Mask. I’d have Mask over Politburo every time.

Billionaires are just centers of power who are not subject to the Party ideology and control. Why would anyone refuse having the power more distributed?

if you are born rich, you get to be rich, if you are born poor you get to stay poor.

I came to the US with $700 in debt. But I didn’t stay poor.

Then it seems natural to start to dislike each other.

It may be natural, but it seems extremely counterproductive.

Well, destruction of a competitor is always good for owners of the company, not for workers.

All it would take is one activist shareholder to blow that whole thing apart.

The following fascinating story about stealing money from Pacific fleet operations mentions 27 (twenty seven) whistleblowers whose reports were ignored:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/navy-repeatedl...