anamax

John Ford

In the spirit of “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” - James D. Nicoll

Yes, Sleeping Beauty, et al were originally from "not the US" countries, very few people outside those countries remembers that. Instead, they're Disney, or at least US.

If you believe that some people have a pre-existing unfair bias in their favor, then applying a countermeasure is indeed fair.

What definition of "some people" and "unfair" are we using?

I ask because I'm pretty sure that Obama's daughters "have a bias in their favor" in comparison with my lily-white nieces. (The parents of said nieces make around $40k/year.)

Is it fair to apply "countermeasures" to benefit said daughters relative to said nieces?

You can argue that said nieces have an unfair bias relative to similarly situated black children, but that's not how these systems tend to work.

And, it's not just Obama's daughters.

The New York Times Company operates under a dual-class stock structure where the Ochs-Sulzberger family holds roughly 95% of Class B shares. This family control allows them to elect 70% of the company's Board of Directors.

Copied from google's response to "new york times governance"

Google's AI also says that the NYT has had that structure since 1957.

Ford has something similar from the 1930s. (Dodge did too until it was bought.) Raylon (synthetic textiles) did it in the 1920s and the company behind Jack Daniels did it right after Prohibition.

Google says that the NYSE banned dual-class between 1926 and 1986; I don't know how to reconcile that with Ford.

One of the founders of Renaissance Technologies, which runs some of the most successful quant funds of all time, said ""We’re right 50.75% of the time... but we’re 100% right 50.75% of the time."

I wonder why a balloon or an extra-long safety sausage wouldn't work.

The n word is a staple of activities by members of a protected class.

Feel free to tell them that they're wrong.

It can be both or neither, not just one or the other.

bcd is a reasonable way to do fixed-point decimal arithmetic.

binary floating point, let alone IEEE, is almost useless for implementing decimal arithmetic.

The article claims "One of the most surprising of these techniques involves the Roth IRA, which limits most people to contributing just $6,000 each year."

That's sort of correct (the number is $8,600) wrt direct contributions but direct contributions are not the only way to fund a Roth IRA.

Roth IRAs can also be funded by converting a regular IRA or by rolling a Roth 401(k) into a Roth IRA. A regular IRA can be funded by rolling a 401(k).

This is relevant because the contribution limits for 401(k)s, roth or otherwise, are significantly higher than the IRA contribution limits.

The actual yearly contribution limit for both Roth 401(k)s and regular 401(k)s is $70k. Employers are allowed to cap the employee contribution at $23k, but the employer+employee contribution limit is $70k and employers that don't contribute their max ($70k-$23k) can let employees make up the difference. (And, if you're over 55, the $70k is actually $82k.)

Google "backdoor ira" to find out more.

google "checkbook ira" - there are dozens of providers (including one at "checkbookira.com") for ordinary folk.

That said, private company stock is typically limited to accredited investors or insiders. (That's law to "protect the little guy.")

Electric presses seem to be covered by the 1st amendment, and there's a much bigger "output" difference between electric presses and manual presses than there is between machine guns and flintlocks. (Not to mention that flintlocks weren't the most sophisticated personal firearms in the 1770s, just the most common.)

Radio, TV, cameras

That said, breech loaders were used by the British during the Revolutionary War (the Ferguson Rifle) and multiple shots from a single barrel using multiple "touch holes" was well known.

And then there's Puckle's gun.

Europe is usually not this hot, hence lack of AC in many places.

Europe averages 53k to 175k heat-related deaths per year. The difference depends on whether you listen to the EC or the UN. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152766

The comparable number for the US is 4-11k, albeit with about 20% fewer people.

Note that the US is further south than Europe and generally has higher temperatures.

GNU Emacs from gnu.org is usable without an init.el or any other customization.

Every line in init.el is something that you have to maintain and move with you.

And when you're using someone else's computer, their init.el won't be what you expect.

Similar usage pattern (no init.el), but I started with TECO Emacs in the late 70s.

He can borrow against it which gets around taxes and that should probably be addressed

Folks who lend money against stock insist on being repaid. (In fact, they typically have the right to sell the stock to be repaid.) The money to replay was taxed. (It comes from salaries and/or stock sales. Borrowing more to repay previous loans just kicks the can down the road.)

Lenat's AM and Eurisko worked because large fraction of legal token strings were meaningful.

https://imgur.com/anon-starts-world-war-crow-K63U5ig

Trust in science is so low in the US that this was bound to happen.

How is "They were almost certainly transported via unchecked northward migration of people and animals." a consequence of loss of trust in science?

even in the US you "cannot yet fire in a crowded theatre".

Actually, you can yell "fire" if there is a fire.

Note that the "can't yell fire" quote comes from a decision involving folks who were distributing pamphlets opposing the WWI draft. It was written by Holmes, who also wrote "three generations of idiots are enough" to justify a eugenics law, in a case that didn't involve any idiots.

Moreover, the "fire" decision was overturned by Brandenberg v Ohio.

GPUs will fully depreciate after 3 years (6-year-old A100s are still in very high demand!)

Depreciation is a tax thing. While it is supposed to track useful life, it almost never does.

For example, houses are depreciated on a 28-year schedule. I'm typing this from a house built in 1902....

Google has yet to decommission any of its Trilliums, and the V1s shipped in 2015.

The prices to rent V2 (2017) and later are on https://cloud.google.com/tpu/pricing .

I'll try it.

And if it works, I'll wonder why microsoft doesn't make the ubuntu button use terminal.

Corporations are aggregations of people.

Are AIs?

I switched from WSL (reconn'd to WSL1) to WSL2 because I thought that WSL1 would be abandoned.

However, the shell for WSL2 runs in a window that grabs things, such as ^V.

So, ssh from WSL2 (to AWS for example) is awkward. For exampl, Emacs on the AWS box is almost unusable.

Fishers will spend a lot more money to keep a fishery alive than non-fishers will.

Matt Damon talked about this somewhere. The risk aversion stems from the move away from DVD sales.

DVDs and even video tape are relatively recent.

Hollywood was a lot less risk averse before DVDs and video tape. Heck, Hollywood was less risk averse before TV became mainstream.

One problem with prefab is that it isn't less expensive.

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/the-elusive-cost-savi...

The wealthy often make their money as capital gains, which if they held for at least one year, are exempt from the income tax

Not even close. As your link shows, "the wealthy" pay taxes on long-term capital gains. The lowest rate (for "the wealthy") is 15% but they can owe 20% or even 28% in certain circumstances.

The first $500k is federal tax-free. The rest is taxed at long-term capital gains rates.

IIRC, California taxes that $1.1M as ordinary income.