cheese_van

I unwittingly "rented" a book that I thought I was buying. Luckily I realized after the fact, and was immediately able to cancel. But the interface was exactly the same as buying a book and I, smug that I know what I'm doing on the net, admit to being enraged I fell for it.

The rent, by the way, was more than half the purchase price.

It may be the appeal of a small machine with exceptionally tiny, often handmade parts decorated or at least polished to a beautiful sheen. There is an unquantifiable moment when a crafted item, in this case mechanical, is so well made it slides into a category of art. The watch is not quite an automaton, but it can evoke a bit of wonder and marvel.

The problem for the watch enthusiast is that there is always a watch that is better, artistically or mechanically, or more beautiful. Acquiring one that is affordable is a bit of a hunt, as is increasing one's knowledge of what makes a watch good and beautiful.

It's not nostalgia, I don't believe, but the pleasure of having an item that evokes a bit of wonder.

Long ago, I had the pleasure of being in a two car convoy in the Syrian desert looking for a particular castle deep and isolated in the desert (we were Foreign Service). We had the galley draft for Monuments of Syria as a guide. We were somewhat lost.

Over the horizon, we could see dust, then as the dust got closer, we could see a huge herd of camel headed straight for us. So we stayed put, ought to be interesting.

Probably about 300 camels. With two Bedu kids driving them. The oldest maybe 15 or 16 or so. The other probably about 14 years old. They stopped to gawk at us, just as we were gawking at them.

"How many camels do you have," we asked. They shrugged. "Where are you coming from?" we asked. They pointed behind them. "Where are you going?" They pointed in front of them. Then the oldest urged his mount forward, and we watched them disappear over the desert horizon.

Syria was one of the most interesting places in the world to visit before it came to its present heartbreaking condition.

My cheap smart phone is hard disconnected from anything to do with the web. No connectivity. At first, I chalked it up to my previous gov CI and comms career. But honestly, I'm just being stubborn. And it stays at home when I leave the house. (I'm reminded I should get a burner for car emergencies).

That said, there's a certain amount of privilege there. I'm well connected at home and don't need a tiny device to squint at as I can afford something large and visually ergonomic. I do understand that for many, a smart phone is their only connection.

NASA release of first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope on July 12. Join Webb experts for a conversation where you can interact in real time on July 13.

In some gov circles, the scenario often postulated is that a bird flu variant would be globally spread by Hajj pilgrims leaving Mecca to return to their various homes. The average yearly Hajj partipation is about 2.5 million people. It's estimated by some that 500 million migratory birds pass through Saudi Arabia.

I believe Pong was, due to it's complexity, and possible dual use, not an exportable item. Not sure it that's true, or how I knew it, perhaps folklore? Perhaps not.

Neither were most of IBM's processors.

Shit, I just remembered that PGP in its early days was considered a "munition" and also not exportable. whoops, sorry for the de-rail.

Idle hands are the devil's workshop > Restrictions are Satan seminars.

I'm going to use that last phrase with good, but obtuse effect, I'm sure.

I read with interest most well written articles explaining entropy. I often leave the article mildly satisfied that I understood it. Until the next day when I again have to figure out the difference between "high" and "low" entropy in a particular model, and invariably I mix up the two.

I do have font preferences but my greater preference is background color. I've found that hex color #FEF0DF as a background tires me less. For reference, it's roughly the Financial Times background.

Calibre allowing me to set the background color to my preference is a godsend for a heavy reader. HN's background is pretty good also. Anyone know the hex?

...and the galaxies will have drifted so far apart, that nothing will appear to exist beyond their own galaxy, except dust.

Same in Germany. The potatoes with dirt on them are "the good stuff." Another huge difference: In Germany, it is illegal to sell eggs that have been washed. In the US, it is illegal to sell unwashed eggs.

This is nice.

Not criticism, more a confession. My eyes aren't what they used to be. They somewhat struggle to focus if there is much white screen appearing with colored fonts if the font isn't sufficiently dark. My tired eyes want subdued effects now. As I said, lovely site. It's my aging eyes that are the bother.

>The 80s and 90s had a more libertarian or liberal (less authoritarian left) vibe.

Looking back on it, it's hard to decipher. I explained to my son that once, a movie usher asked me to put out my cigarette at a midnight movie. This while the rest of the patrons were smoking pot, which was so commonplace at midnight movies that the authorities just ignored it. Those decades were a strange battleground between intellectual freedom (and hedonism) jousting with the establishment. This decade, I don't feel that promise of wholly unbridled intellectual freedom, and the excitement it caused. I suppose the establishment won.

>Works, is easy to use, and help is everywhere for it.

It's so easy you can't even be smug anymore using nearly any linux distro. Damn their eyes, I worked hard in the 90's getting my linux cred. Now, grandma is using it. Time to switch to Gentoo I suppose.

>it communicates the sheer chaos of the period

For me, it's the sheer chaos of being alive. There's no sympathy in McCarthy's universe, no room for sentimentality. It's bleak as hell. If there's loving, human contact, it's fleeting, and erodes, usually quickly, like the unforgiving landscape of all his books. There's slight redemptive quality just enduring life, enduring existence if you have the strength. He's one of the best American existentialists. "I'm still alive", is both banal and heroic in McCarthy's world.

We view this problem so wrongheadedly. Disinformation, in all manner of forms, has always been with us. From fraudulent Victorian business prospectus, from yellow journalism, to today's social media. The responsible observer has always needed to discriminate.

To attempt to free the observer from the need to discriminate is to treat him like a child.

The real problem is that our education systems have let our children down. Restoring classroom education at all levels is the best, and only solution. Disinformation would not be a problem with a critical mass of an educated populace.

Yes, US tax law compels and drives Tesla's behavior. We tax cigarettes, we tax beer - we tax bad behavior in the hope of positive outcomes. From that perspective, it would be considered bad behavior if a corporation does not utilize tax law to reduce tax burden.

Now it may be that the definition of "good" corporate behavior is shifting, but until the changed definition is reflected in tax law, it makes no sense to criticize the corporation who is only behaving in the manner tax law provides.

>Let us also find out why a non governmental entity is handling *

Ex-gov here. It is baked into gov thinking that the most desirable solution to difficult problems is to give it to the commercial sector. To a degree, it recognizes that a core responsibility of US gov is to support US commerce. One may argue how that philosophy encourages certain forms of corruption (swinging door, price abominations etc) but it's an accepted cost of doing business. What's good for GM is still, in those corridors, felt to be good for America.

I'm not arguing that this is a good thing. But it's how US gov thinks. That is why these problems are farmed out to the commercial sector. And as ex-gov, I can tell you that the government is a cash cow. And that's how they like it. And business. They like that too.

>But the average person (or even the average IT dept) does not want to open their machine to update the BIOS.

I happily updated BIOS until I experienced a catastrophic failure that bricked the board, don't know how. Since then I'm terrified of updating BIOS. I've also experienced UEFI conflicts(?) loading linux to new boards that took forever to sort out. It seems BIOS development has not progressed as well or far as one might expect, but that may just be me and my klutzy bad luck.

This may have been the first SCOTUS ruling that cited a tweet in defense of an argument.

Ron Klain's tweet crowing that the OSHA mandate was the “ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations,” was cited by Gorsuch.

Remember that the farmers were tied to the land by medieval relationships. After the labor disruption of the plague, and because the demand for their labor greatly increased, farmers were better able to negotiate the relationship for better personal outcomes, including wages.

Being able to leave their current landed relationship and seek better prospects elsewhere was probably the greatest of gains.

The first time I encountered Prufrock, it took my breath away, and I was inspired by its beauty. I honestly cannot imagine my mind, then an English major, and now an aging fool, without Prufrock's influence giving me such a sense of deep pleasure at what a person, and by extension, all men, despite flaws, can create. It is foolish, I believe, to lay judgement on men of the past, without the context of the environment that shaped them. To deny ourselves the pleasure and inspiration of cultural works shaped by flawed men is to ignore our own imperfections and lessens the hope and confidence that we can do great things ourselves, despite our great personal failings.

> it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you.

When you use Google you are walking into their shop. That salesperson is very knowlegeable, but about you.

Perhaps it is a good thing that you can't downvote. I'm not sure. Is being able to downvote a necessary condition to "engage"? Or does not being able to downvote force us to engage, not with an easy click, but with a considered comment?

Perhaps this condition adds to HN's value as a venue where you can expect to encounter thoughtfulness? It's why we come here after all. Or perhaps it trains the new user how to use the site in ways best suited to HN's culture?

> I'd never pick mushrooms from the wild

Foraging for mushrooms is an awful lot of fun. In many European cities, you are often able to bring all your mushrooms to the local food market mushroom expert and have them identified. It's a great service.

Perhaps. Although appointments are by definition, appointed, not hired, or considered part of the hiring process.

Certainly, the ratio of career diplomats to appointments with respect to ambassadorial appointments is a lively topic among FS personnel.

>they struggle to hire people who can actually speak foreign languages

I was career Foreign Service. This observation is rather wide of the mark.

State's foreign language school is the best of its kind as it certainly needs to be - State requires all diplomats to achieve fluency in one foreign language or face termination. A two year, or more, intensive language assignment at State's Foreign Service Institute is mandatory for nearly all diplomats. As I mentioned, ALL diplomats are required to achieve fluency or they are terminated.

In fact, if you want to be paid while learning and achieving a language fluency, I can unreservedly recommend State.

edit: This "learn a language or get fired" applies only to career Foreign Service diplomats. Executive branch appointments via the spoils system (plum book) avoid such requirements.

Looking back, I remember that all you needed for flame wars was 300 baud. Bad Twitter, in my mind, is not that far from bad alt.talk.

Yes, "race" for geneticists is an imprecise term and in that field there is a growing need for a better descriptor.

Now for cops, or social workers, or everyday speech, race may be just the perfect term - morphology is important to their work, and will remain important. But geneticists are concerned with more than morphology, or appearance.

I don't believe there is a linguistic threat here to everyday speech, or a threat to how we refer to each others appearance. But in genetics, race as a scientific term is in need of improvement - and that is what the article is acknowledging.

I'm not sure I would impute a "woke" angle here.