HN user
nobody knows what to do with it yet though.
I've sent a lengthy email to Atomic Rockets strongly suggesting that cloaking devices are back on the menu. No reply yet and I know I've said this a few dozen times before but I really think we got 'em this time!
it doesn't sound very convincing
That's because it's not a strong conclusion. It's a "better than the alternatives" hypothesis. Repeating my tldr above "they don't know it's alphabetic".
doesn't bring any EVIDENCE .. some morphological characteristics of the inscriptions
I'd say the "morphological characteristics of the inscriptions" count as evidence and I'll just recap everything linked that I think counts as evidence: the graphemes include several repetitions even with only 12 signs in total; they don't resemble cuneiform at all; they have a weak resemblances to some Egyptian glyphs but weak and Egypt didn't have these clay cigars; they have a weak resemblance to some Indus glyphs and (later) Byblos glyphs but again weak; they don't appear to be numbers, potmarks, etc.; but what they do strikingly resemble is later alphabetic signs, to the point where the author, one of the foremost experts on Semitic epigraphy, really wanted the dating to be wrong.
Now the blog post doesn't go into much detail on these items but Schwartz's 20+ page 2021 paper (I had no trouble getting a free, legal copy) does (not always a lot more detail but also covers more possible alternatives). But, like the blog post says, the case Schwartz 2021 makes is still extremely cautious and he basically concludes that we just have to hope we can find more examples to confirm what kind of system they are from, and to increase the chance of deciphering them.
The tldr is that they don't know it's alphabetic for sure (see below quote). The main scholar (Glenn Schwartz) who co-oversaw the '94-'10 excavation isn't an expert in writing. He put it out there around 2010 and said "maybe it's alphabetic, idk" and there was not much followup from the community. So he consulted with some writing experts who helped him with the 2021 paper where he goes over the evidence for different possibilities and suggests that the strongest argument is for alphabetic. The dating seems to be on firmer ground but the error bands on this and Wadi el-Hol can probably knock a century or two off the "500 years".
A decent summary is the blog post below from another researcher who briefly was part of the same dig and a former student of Schwartz (so not entirely independent):
http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=921
It is worth noting that in the past Schwartz has been reluctant to affirm that the four inscribed clay cylinders from Tomb 4 of Umm el-Marra are alphabetic (Schwartz 2010). Thus, he certainly did not rush to this conclusion. Moreover, his most recent article about these is also very cautious (Schwartz 2021), as he moves through various possibilities (as discussed above). But it is clear that he is now willing to state that this is the most reasonable position (i.e., it is Early Alphabetic). And I concur. That is, the most reasonable conclusion is that the Umm el-Marra clay cylinders are inscribed with signs that are most readily understood as Early Alphabetic letters (graphemes). Moreover, since the Early Alphabetic alphabet was used to write Semitic, it is logical to conclude that this is the language of the Umm el-Marra inscriptions (the fact that they were found in Syria would also augment this conclusion, of course).
The full blog post is worth reading and summarizes the case for various non-alphabetic possibilities.
I thought the article was fine, historically, as a pop travel article. You seem to have hate-read it because it wasn't encyoclopedic enough and left out some of your favorite bits of Arthurian trivia.
I think the author's issue is he conflates feudalism, which is generally held to begin in the 10th century, with the entire medieval period, which is traditionally dated as starting in the late 5th century. He also thinks of feudalism as this static culturally defining force but in reality it waxed and waned depending on the time and place.
It also had some huge holes in who and what it covered, and it's not hard to imagine any of the OD&D classes (cleric, magic-user, fighting-man) in those gaps. The largest of these gaps by far was The Church, but we also have universities (which developed under protection of the church), guilds (which developed in places under protection of the universities), and the rising merchant class (who could form guilds to reinforce their power). There were also mercenaries, hermits and various other free people.
You misunderstand how personality rights work .. Called it in the other thread
One of the great things about HN is you get all kinds of experts from every field imaginable.
is not prosecutable
Yikes.
if housing is so affordable in Japan, why are there still people who don't own homes?
Mostly because they don't need or want their own house and/or they spend their money on other stuff.
Can an average McDonalds worker in their 20-ies just go and buy a home easily
The median McDonalds worker in Japan is 17 and lives with their parents. And maybe 3/4 of the ones who aren't teens are freeters.
If you don't make a lot of money you can certainly buy something but it won't be the nicest or in the best location.
without applying for a lifetime-long mortgage?
Many people buy with cash, many get nicer homes with 35-year mortgages at super low interest rates.
Yeah I also travel with a battery pack and, if I'm overseas, a pocket wifi. And my airpods, although lots of people like big headsets too. Apple also thinks their VR rig is great for air travel. So potentially 7-9 devices.
I'm personally not as bothered by the number of devices as much as all the forced redundancy. Like the core devices could have 3 desktop quality processors, 13 microphones, 3 selfie cameras, 2 rear cameras, 2-3 cellular modems, etc.
I'd love a design where the phone is my chip, 5g radio and storage. The camera can be worn as a bodycam (for lifestreaming or personal safety) but also docks to the phone. The phone speakers and mics are a 2nd set of airpods you can cycle in to keep them charged (both sets can be docked at once). The tablet is just a bigger screen with extra battery/storage and the phone docks to that. The watch screen is weaker and monochrome so the battery life is better and it keeps the health functions.
Speaking of 'grossly mischaracterizing' Volokh, why do you think he is "uniquely qualified" to weigh in here? Is it because your views usually align with his? He seems no more qualified than the sources mhneu provided. This decision has been soundly roasted across the spectrum.
Whether Hans cheated OtB is not really the main issue although most commenters get hung up on it.
Occam’s Razor suggests we should strongly believe he didn’t cheat OTB.
The bigger issue is that known cheaters create a cloud of suspicion that puts their opponents at a huge disadvantage. Magnus has spoken about this before - if you think someone might be cheating you can’t concentrate on chess.
This suspicion can be allayed with extra security but that extra security was only deployed after Magnus left.
* Headphone jack.
Louis CK assured me my stuff was already going to space.
This place has lots of world class thinkers but is heavily overburdened with title janitors and tone police.
This is an actually interesting development but there’s zero discussion of it and 50 comments that want to split hairs about whether conclusions reached by simulations count as evidence or not.
Lots of countries have great systems that aren't single payer.
The idea that AD&D didn’t have powergamers sounds like Gygax propaganda. This is the edition that put out a book of diety statblocks like it was another monster manual. Your linked Animal Friendship, allows 2xHD of companions so a L3 druid could have a Cave Bear. That’s as bad as it sounds.
Every edition has many issues but imho 1e is pretty terrible by modern standards.
A passing familiarity with her blog has the substantiation. The fact that the last few decades of particle physics has led nowhere is the truth but I don't see anyone else brave enough to tell that story because they all work for the emperor with no clothes.
mostly just been abused as a vehicle for crazy, baseless manias
The whole movement came out of monetary crank-ism, those people were always there.
Let me know when there’s a mainstream non-scam MiltonCoin or KeynesCoin that isn’t deflationary and automatically models semi-optimal central bank policy.
Without more recent bones, we have no reason to believe that they still exist.
Eyewitness accounts aren’t bones but they are still evidence.
1. Technically they weren’t as smart. Fetal and child nutrition is hugely important for brain development. Modern language is far more complex. Intellectual stimulation for children is far mote advanced.
2. Slow by who’s definition? It seems like they were doing lots of useful things in a pretty harsh environment. Cleverness for cavemen was measured in surviving and outcompeting other smart humans, hominids and predators. Language and culture got more and more complex and yeah they developed a long list of physical technology.
3. Intelligence isn’t sufficient to produce a lot of technology. For example, domesticating wild grains may require you to be sedentary which itself has other requirements and is something you don’t get when your survival depends on following herds of megafauna around. More than the tech tree often you need some sort of pressure like running out of new places to live and/or running out of the megafauna you’ve always chased.
I take delight knowing that it drives racists crazy so it’s improved my user experience.
Here's the writeup:
https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-deep-dive-i...
edit, previous discussion:
If it’s coded like wordle you can just change system date and do the other puzzles.
One alternative is the guy who needs a $500 emergency loan gets it at a non-usurius interest rate. The system could be revamped to support easier repayment for actual emergency loans.
Personal Blocklist is another option on Firefox
I found it to be less a satire of 2FA/MFA than of college administration busybodies in general.
On r/law they explained it’s a technicians or special trial laptop thats preloaded with software like this.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI), for example, measures the prices of a basket of household goods and services that households regularly consume, with weights assigned to each item in the basket based on their average shares of total expenditures. Among these is a shelter component that includes both rental costs and the consumption value of owner-occupied housing, in addition to other forms of lodging such as hotels. Shelter makes up nearly a third of the basket for CPI inflation, and 40 percent of the basket for core CPI that excludes the volatile food and energy components.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/2021/09/09/housing-price...
You can bet every HN thread about inflation will be full of bad info from cranks.
I’d have thought the streaming test is done over wi-fi. Maybe the Targeted Wake Time in WiFi 6 combined with higher bandwidth can account for the difference.
It’s worse than that, Apple already agreed to this just last month as part of a different settlement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/26/apple-a...
In the 2020 primaries and election, he wasn't taken seriously by either dems or reps
He was one of two Democratic candidates that had significant right wing support. As far as Dem's not taking him seriously, a big part of that is because he had no political experience and America's experiment in electing someone like that was an ongoing dumpster fire.