the_gastropod

There was that famous 2009 case of Amazon remote deleting George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles.

Don't confuse Julia's humility / accessible writing style for "less informed". She's a deeply knowledgeable programmer who's been doing this for a long time. She works hard to make tech topics feel less intimidating to newcomers.

You use GPS?

1. “Reunification” is straight Chinese propaganda. Taiwan has never been part of the PRC. Japan has a stronger claim for “reunification” than the PRC does (and that’d also be very dumb)

2. Taiwan and Taiwanese allies also have agency. China doesn’t just get to fire 20-30k ballistic missiles at Taiwan with no consequences. The consequences would maybe be asymmetrical, but they’d no doubt be very painful for China.

You’re doing the “we should improve society somewhat” meme guy thing. People are allowed to do better without being perfect.

Of course not! But both-sides guys need to make outrageous reaches like this to prove that both sides are equally bad, and that they are enlightened beyond such petty partisanship.

The “greedheads” are the ones wanting people to pay their fair share of taxes, and not the people who’ve hoarded billions in wealth, and are using some of that wealth to fight to continue tax avoidance?

Mind sharing these good economic reasons?

lol. Yes. You couldn’t possibly be blind! You’re a both-sides guy. And, as everyone knows, both-sides guys are rational and grounded in reality.

Ah, so those weren’t mostly 6-3 decisions along partisan lines?

+1 this request!

I'd been dreaming about trying to make something almost exactly like this app, but have absolutely no clue how to even begin going about it. You've nailed it! I've been manually cropping out audio clips from Audacity, and grabbing the relevant translations from my textbook PDF's to make Anki cards that look 3.5% as nice as yours do. Really nice work on this!

Yeeep. It feels like one of those “holding a wolf by the ears” situations. I don’t know how we get out of this mess.

One especially frustrating part of it is that it really benefits nobody. Your home goes up in value, cool. You owe more property taxes. And all the other homes around you also go up in value, so… you’re really no better off unless you downsize or move to a cheaper housing market.

Something akin to Georgism seems like the correct answer. But how you get there from here? Beats me!

This “Apple customers are brainwashed cultists incapable of examining reality” schtick was tired a decade ago. No option’s perfect. But Apple’s current tradeoffs vs other options’ trade offs continue to feel worthwhile to many.

If it were a reliable predictor, it’d be trivial to become a billionaire by levering up, and riding the next “cycle” up, no? You doing it? I suspect not, because you know it’s not actually a reliable predictor of anything.

Technical analysis is just astrology for finance bros.

The ELIZA effect has been around since 1966. I think lots of folks feel “AI” has advanced much more quickly that it really has because of the nature of its many past boom / bust cycles.

…says a lot about what it is

Doesn’t it say that it’s a retirement fund, intended to be saved until retirement age? The 10% penalty is little more than a wrist slap level deterrent, too. It’s usually like ~1 year of returns. Not a huge deal if you need to dip into it.

(There’s plenty to criticize about the whole 401k system of retirement accounts. But these criticisms seem misguided)

Lol. I don't know why I'm responding to an account with "I like Elon and Trump, and don't feel ashamed for it." in it, but what the hell.. Let's do it:

1. That Xi quote is, as best I can tell, not real. Want to share a source if you've got one? Best I can tell, it's a bad reference to the Davidson window? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidson_window). For fun, here's a key line from this Wikipedia page: "The Center for Strategic and International Studies found 83% of China experts reject that China plans kinetic action against Taiwan by 2027. Representative Jim Himes called 2027 invasion scenarios 'really dumb' given economic costs."

2. Since 1949, Taiwan has had mandatory 1-3 year military service for all but 5 years (2019-2024). In 2022, they decided to resume 1 year military service starting in 2024.

3. History buffs may recall the PRC and the ROC have a history of conflict. Maintaining military preparedness is par for the course for Taiwanese history.

All this to say: a threat does exist (which I acknowledged in my post you've very much miscategorized). This same threat has existed throughout Taiwan's history. The government (rightfully) treats it with importance. But day-to-day Taiwanese citizens aren't losing any sleep over this. The likelihood of a Chinese military invasion is exceedingly slim. It would be an almost certain blunder for China to attempt something so bold for a litany of reasons.

If you've never been to Taiwan, you should check it out. It's a lovely place. While there, ask someone if they're worried about China invading. 95% chance they laugh, and comment that that's such an American question. And then tell you "no".

You'll find that Americans tend to vastly overestimate how much people in Taiwan actually think about the threat of China. Is there a threat? Yea. But its likelihood is very much still unknown.

In the meantime, Taiwan offers a pretty excellent quality of life, and it's a great option to have in your back pocket, if you're fortunate enough to have a legal pathway to live there.

My Canadian girlfriend, who’s totally real, by the way, believes you.

That question pops into my mind from time to time, too. Hope he's well, and I hope he knows the lasting positive impact he had on so many people.

I weirdly got my first programming job / made a good friend because of him (he tweeted about wishing he could adopt @person. I looked up @person, saw they lived in my city, worked at a company that was hiring. I DM'd @person, and eventually got the job!" Thanks ~2008 _why!

Dude, what? Is it the MINASWAN acronym that's the problem or? If that's "trumpeting moral virtue", I can think of lots of programming languages that trumpet their moral virtue:

Let's check out the Rust Code of Conduct (https://rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct/):

"Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude."

"We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic."

Seems pretty morally virtuous, no?

How 'bout Gleam... Right on their home page (https://gleam.run):

"As a community, we want to be friendly too. People from around the world, of all backgrounds, genders, and experience levels are welcome and respected equally. See our community code of conduct for more.

Black lives matter. Trans rights are human rights. No nazi bullsh*t."

Seems morally virtuous, too!

Also also: what does the "whytheluckystiff debacle" have to do with any of this?! Also also also: _why was pretty much the first prominent "dragger" of dhh. Man was an innovator.

Having literal billionaire best buds backing the project probably helps one gain traction, no? Toss in a dash of weird culture war bullshit, and… well. Distro popularity isn’t exactly a meritocratic system.

“Open borders” was pretty much standard across the world prior to World War 1. These tightly controlled immigration policies are, historically speaking, incredibly new.

I think it’s self evident that the U.S. benefited greatly from its mass immigration inflows in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Sounds like you might live in a sensible place where you probably don’t need a car at all. That’s the ideal! Unfortunately, much of, e.g., the U.S. (outside of ~4 cities), “cities” are built around individual car ownership. There, where a car is pretty much necessary, and you likely already have a dedicated spot to store it, it often makes sense to choose an EV version.

In other words, it’s a thought terminating cliche. Why say it?

The Juicero is here to stay! There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Crypto bros said the same thing about NFT’s and ICO’s and whatever other nonsense they were pushing. And to some extent, they were right, I guess, in that these things still exist. But they’re practically irrelevant.

Your 150 mile daily commute seems like a much bigger factor in this dilemma than the cold temperature range reduction. That’s over 3x the average American daily commute distance! For the huge majority of Americans, the cold weather thing just will not be a factor at all. And yet, it’s probably the #1 fact they know about EV’s.

These problems are (imo) vastly overblown for the way most people drive. The only time the cold temperature reduced range / reduced charge speed are relevant is for long road trips where you’re driving > ~200mi at once. Otherwise, you just charge up at home overnight and easily recoup any normal driving range you used during the day, regardless of the temperature.

Norwegians have apparently figured this out. Despite being pretty damn cold, they’re buying EV’s almost exclusively now (97%).

... Did you just suggest gp is "worse than Hitler" for suggesting Elon Musk, a man who's very publicly called empathy a "fundamental weakness" and "threat to Western Civilization", a sociopath? And you went on to compare the powerless women tried for witchcraft to the richest man in the history of the planet? Please go touch grass, my dude.