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Sacho

1,785 karma · joined July 24, 2013

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Sacho··on Terminating Service for 8Chan
> Aren't Al Quaeda and ISIS websites shutdown all the time

Ironically for your argument, Cloudflare hasn't really shutdown any alleged ISIS sites. This was even noted in their first blog when shutting down the Daily Stormer.

Sacho··on Terminating Service for 8Chan
Pedophiles don't make the choice to be pedophiles - would you allow their pedophilia activism? What's the difference?
Sacho··on Equifax removed the $125 claim payout option after millions submitted claims
Er... this is exactly how it works in developing / third-world countries.

My parents managed to obtain a loan for their first apartment thanks to my grandparents offering their house as colllateral. This is how pretty much everyone from my parents' generation got their first apartment.

Credit pretty much didn't exist in my parents' generation - loans were generally reserved for houses and cars, because of the strict conditions. Everyone saved up lump sums and paid cash. It's ineffficient, but far from "not participating in the economy".

It may be possible to negotiate different conditions on receiving credit, but I don't know if you can demand a modern economy without any drawbacks.

Sacho··on We tried to publish a replication of a Science paper in Science
There's an implication in your argument that the science posted in the journal is of a good enough quality to be published - otherwise why wouldn't you apply the same standard you are applying here? Doing a bad job isn't limited to just reproduction.

Considering the reproducibility crisis, is it your position that people are worse at reproducing research than they are at conducting it? An alternative interpretation would be that people have more incentive to publish hastily-made "failed to reproduce" papers than they have "findings" papers, but I don't think that's the case either, especially considering the reply from Science to this case.

Sacho··on Walmart Pleads Guilty After a Decade of Bribes
Your examples are flawed. In two of the cases, the "assets"(children and dog) are specifically not deemed responsible due to their lack of maturity/lack of understanding of societal norms - so we instead find the "owner"(or more properly named, parent/guardian) at fault - they are supposed to keep the children or pet in line.

In the case of a loaned car, you are not liable for damages that the person you loaned the car to causes(perhaps you're confusing it with insurance liability?). I don't know about the contractor case.

How is your "practical and effective" solution any different from a fine? You fine the company $300 mil, or you seize $300 mil of shares and sell them.

Sacho··on Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
From LI's reporting, if I understood correctly, the Gibsons' agreed to drop the assault charges if the accused students would make a statement that the Gibsons' were not racist.
Sacho··on GM and Fiat Chrysler Unmasked as Tesla’s Source of Cash
> They also represent the first acknowledgments from carmakers that they’re turning to Tesla for help to comply with intensifying U.S. environmental regulations.

I don't know how you manage to spin the article the opposite way. If anything is bailing out Tesla, it's the US govt providing the credits, not car manufacturers.

Sacho··on Google/Oracle’s $9B Copyright Case Could Be Headed for the Supreme Court
It appears they denied the previous petition from Google in 2015. Why is this one different?
Sacho··on Julian Assange arrested in London
Okay, let's look at a hypothetical - you say the investigation was dropped because they couldn't interview him. What is the practical difference to the investigators if they interview him and he says "I refuse to comment on anything"? There must be some way to move forward without cooperation from the accused - Assange isn't the first person to flee a country pending an investigation. Why didn't they do so?

Looking at Swedish law, they have a rough equivalent of Miranda - https://open.karnovgroup.se/processratt/fuk Section 12(google translate):

- Do not have to comment on the suspicion and not otherwise have to contribute to the investigation of their own debt

Sacho··on Julian Assange arrested in London
What's so damning about that convo? Try reading that conversation with the assumption that WL is a neutral party that wants to advance its own interests:

- leak more documents(Trump tax returns)

- get more publicity(asking Trump Jr to retweet/push their stories and lead viewers to their site)

- fight allegations of partisanship(publish anti-Trump documents)

How else would you approach Donald Trump Jr in this conversation? You need to give him some reason to help you.

Sacho··on Julian Assange arrested in London
Sweden doesn't have trials in absentia? Judging by this document(https://rm.coe.int/168058f4b0), they do:

-------------------------------------------

Chapter 46 (proceedings in the district courts) Section 15 a If the matter can be satisfactorily investigated, the case may be adjudicated notwithstanding the fact that the defendant has appeared only by counsel or has failed to appear if:

1. there is no grounds to impose a criminal sanction other than fine, imprisonment for a maximum of three months, conditional sentence, or probation, or such sanctions jointly,

2. after service of the summons upon the defendant, he has fled or remains in hiding in such a manner that he cannot be brought to the main hearing, or

3. the defendant suffers from serious mental disturbance and his or her attendance as a result thereon is unnecessary.

Orders under the Penal Code, Chapter 34, Section 1, paragraph 1, clause 1, shall have the same standing as the sanctions stated in the first paragraph, clause 1.

However, this does not apply if, in connection with such an order, a conditional release from imprisonment shall be declared forfeited as to a term of imprisonment exceeding three months.

In the situations stated in first paragraph, clause 2, the case may be adjudicated even if the defendant has not been served the notice of the hearing.

Procedural issues may be decided even if the defendant has failed to appear in court. (SFS 2001:235)

-------------------------------------------

Looks like a perfect fit for Assange's case. Why didn't they try him this way?

Sacho··on EU Agencies Falsely Report More Than 550 Archive.org URLs as Terrorist Content
Your facts argue against your point. In your words, a city, the government itself, tried to block the "Unite the Right" rally. Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter "was treated with far more disdain"(presumably by private actors exercising their own freedom of speech - not government actors?). It sounds like there was plenty of disdain for the "Unite the Right" rally as well - I can't imagine what else would lead a city to break the law in an attempt to block it.

I'm not sure what outcome you would have wanted from the situation - the government should have further tried to supress people against BLM? Who's the minority power in your scenario again?

Sacho··on To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
I can't imagine how bad public transport must be to increase your commute time by an order of magnitude. I use public transport precisely because I value my time - it takes longer(around x1.5) than using a car, but that time is relaxing, can be used to read a book, listen to a podcast or just order your thoughts. Time spent in a car is stressful and requires your focus and attention.

I'm not sure what kind of population density you need to make public transport workable, but it's a blessing when you have it available. There's some sample math at the end of this article(https://www.ptua.org.au/myths/density/ - technical appendix) which concludes that you don't really need that high a density(it focuses on Melbourne), as long as people actually prefer to use the public transport service over their own cars.

Sacho··on Can fake names create bias in interviewing?
> It's not just a matter of hitting targets - the alternative is that everyone who gets in is from a wealthy family or went to a top fee paying school.

This doesn't follow. The alternative is getting whatever the ratio of <people from wealthy families>/<people from underprivileged/nontraditional backgrounds> is. So following your argument, the people from underprivileged backgrounds that meet the "all things being equal" test must be an insignificant amount.

Sacho··on U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property
> Do you really expect a random police officer to be a constitutional scholar?

You expect that from citizens, as ignorance of the law is not a defense against not breaking it, but police officers are given a myriad of protections(QI), sometimes jokingly called "The Reasonably Stupid Cop Rule"[0]. I don't think police officers should be constitutional scholars, but immunity gives them an incentive to either not learn or just ignore the law.

[0] (https://blog.simplejustice.us/2016/11/30/the-unreasonable-ex...)

Sacho··on Don’t Get Clever with Login Forms
Keeping strong passwords in a plaintext file on your desktop seems like much better security given the most common threat model - compromised dbs leaking the weak password you reused on several sites.
Sacho··on Flight to China turned back after airline forgets to remove Taiwan reference
Does Taiwan want to be recognized as an independent, sovereign nation? As far as I'm aware their claim is that they are the legitimate Chinese government.
Sacho··on New pill can deliver insulin
Here's what an ADA working group[0] had to say about possible causes for Novo Nordisk's insulin price increase:

> Novo Nordisk also published data for two of their insulin products, NovoLog and NovoLog FlexPen. Since the early 2000s, the CAGRs for the list prices for NovoLog and NovoLog FlexPen (Fig. 7) have been in the range of 9.8–9.9% (22). This translated into large total increases in the list prices: 353% (2001–2016) for a NovoLog vial and 270% (2003–2016) for a FlexPen. In contrast, net prices received by the manufacturer increased at a more modest rate (3–36%) with CAGRs of 0.2–2.1%. Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi have reported that rebates have grown rapidly in recent years, representing more than 40% of U.S. gross sales in some cases

[0] - http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/diacare/41/6/1299.f...

Sacho··on Why isn't the internet more fun and weird?
Tim Pool (https://twitter.com/igd_news/status/871794622439313409)

Dave Rubin(https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/24/17883330/d...)

Jordan Peterson(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCGewQc9ktA)

And so on. But are these meaningful examples? I would argue both yes and no. No, because it's difficult to argue that the people calling them out are not a minority of activists who are just pushing their own political agenda.

Yes, because even if it's a minority viewpoint, it's effective - people apathetic to the given issue are likely to take the word of the activists as gospel, which leads to deplatforming.

A very visible example of the effectiveness of this tactic is Charles Murray and The Bell Curve. Regardless of the validity of more sophisticated criticism of his work, he has been effectively denounced as a racist and deplatformed.

This also leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy where speakers presenting their ideas find themselves shunned by group X, and supported by group anti-X. As X step up silencing/deplatforming efforts, either the speaker fades into obscurity, or receives enough support from anti-X to continue their work, but now they can reliably be demonized via guilt by association(Jordan Peterson and the NBC news piece is an example).

Sacho··on Hospital prices are about to go public in the U.S.
I get why they might not be able to tell you how much you'll pay because of your specific insurer, but why would the overall price of the treatment change with it? That seems bizarre.
Sacho··on Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt
That's pretty vague. Where's the dividing line of "difficulty to set up" that differentiates banks from Patreon? There's actually more banks(even in my country) than websites dedicating to donating money to creators, as far as I know. Patreon supports recurring donations, so I'm guessing they have PCI compliance - your line is above "any guy with a website" but below "bank", but can you try pinning it down? Are Mastercard and Visa infrastructure?
Sacho··on Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt
Your statement is ironic as the person being discussed here was banned for denigrating the alt-right during his long-standing vendetta with them. Was he banned for "what he is"?
Sacho··on Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt
I don't see why this character assassination was needed - are the facts in question here? Here's a transcript of the interview that the "well known internet harasser" linked: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfh...

You can clearly see the lines he quotes in it. The words are by Patreon's own Trust and Safety representative:

MATT: Are you telling me that this was Patreon’s decision then, or someone pressured you into this?

JACQUELINE: No - this was entirely Patreon’s decision.

MATT: Well then I don’t understand passing the buck off to somebody else.

JACQUELINE: No, I’m not passing the buck off. The thing is we have guidelines, but I’m trying to explain, #1 it is our mission to fund the creative class and obviously some people may not want to be associated.

MATT: Well if it’s your mission, then payment processors are irrelevant. It’s your mission. That’s what you’re pursuing.

JACQUELINE: We’re not visa and mastercard ourselves - we can’t just make the rules. That’s what I’m saying - there is an extra layer there.

Sacho··on Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
Um, the US government can do that too? I'm not aware of any government that doesn't hold eminent domain powers.
Sacho··on The Rise of Microsoft Visual Studio Code
The deletions are made through git, and windows git does not use the recycle bin, presumably because it's a linux-first tool
Sacho··on Canada has arrested Huawei’s global chief financial officer in Vancouver
What do you mean by "becoming"? The extradition treaty that the US most likely invoked in this case has been in force for almost 50 years.

https://www.oas.org/juridico/mla/en/traites/en_traites-ext-c...

Sacho··on Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons
It seems that there is a Canadian case that confirms the validity of paywalls as a "technical protection measure". While in the case, the circumvention was social(obtain copy from another subscriber), I doubt circumventing it via user agent spoofing would fare better.

https://tcllp.ca/2016/05/the-copyright-act-and-paywalls/

Sacho··on The Digital Maginot Line
Wikipedia is struggling hard against misinformation, POV-pushing and edit wars on almost every controversial topic - the big ones being politics(American, Eastern European, Israel/Palestine) and medicine(gmos, pseudoscience healing, etc)

Here is a list of active sanctions by ArbCom - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Active_s...

These are places where the fighting is so common, admins are allowed to ban on a hair trigger. This doesn't really lead to "high quality" - instead it leads to massive gamesmanship as people try to smear each other and get the "other side" banned so they can freely edit the topics to their content. Just click through some of the cases to see the issues leading to them(beware, this is an endless black hole of drama).

Sacho··on Backdoor in event-stream library dependency
No, that was a different issue. Left-pad was removed from npm, not just left abandoned and unmaintained. The people using it were happy to still use the (unmaintained) version of it.
Sacho··on [dead]
The first link is behind a paywall so I couldn't access it.

The second link is some good research, demonstrating a correlation between diversity and profitability. I was hoping to find within it an analysis of possible confounding factors - for example, what if profitable companies can afford to initiate "diversity and inclusion" campaigns and institute quotas, which would turn the causality the other way around(higher profits -> more diversity), rather than the researchers' explanation(more diversity -> higher profits). Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any such analysis in the paper.

Is this the full text of the third link? https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/SHR-10-20...

The link is more of an article on what diversity and inclusion is, and how to measure its benefits, rather than research that shows those benefits.

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