injb

Maybe the amount of stress we feel is narrowly bounded and has little or nothing to do with how bad things are externally.

In my lifetime the seasons in Ireland were never very distinct. I remember thinking it was odd that spring wasn't much different from winter, and that autumn was often marginally warmer than summer, but living in a continental climate now I can see how the Irish seasons make no sense at all. In the US there tends to be constant mildly cold weather until around the 3rd week in December or so, then it gets noticeably colder. I never experienced that in Ireland.

Interesting! From reading up on this, this seems to be "meteorological winter" which makes me think its not an old tradition. I think it's likely that the terms mid-winter and mid-summer come from a Celtic tradition similar to that still observed in Ireland.

I'm not sure about England, but in Ireland and possibly other Celtic countries, Winter is traditionally taken to be November, December and January, thus Christmas is just slightly past mid-winter.

>>> We have been overspending on this stuff for half a century

I don't think it follows that the US is prepared. Most of that money is just maintenance. You have to spend it just to keep the forces you have. You can't derive much value from the service members who have retired or the stockpiles of obsolete equipment. To put it in extreme terms, if the US stopped spending now, it might not take China very long to overtake them in capability, even though it might take decades to overtake them in spending.

But what will China do for their imports? Unless they can win the war quickly won't they struggle to import the stuff they need, especially food? The US may be unprepared for total self-sufficiency, but at least it's capable of it. Is China?

As an analogy, if you have a hose squirting out water at a certain rate, and you increase the pressure, then all other things being equal you'll get a higher rate of water. But then that means you could now reduce the size of the hose, keeping the new higher pressure, and achieve the original rate of water delivery with a smaller, cheaper, lighter hose.

It's very similar with electricy: water pressure is voltage and the rate of water delivery is power.

True, but the people who ignore warnings on VWs also ignore them on Toyotas, and yet Toyota still consistently comes in ahead.

I do think there are cultural issues though with the US vs Europe. It's very common that cars that are known for quality and reliability in Europe are regarded as exceptionally temperamental in the US. When I first moved to the US I couldn't understand why German cars had such a bad reputation for reliability here. Most of them are traditionally considered more or less bulletproof in Europe.

But after while I noticed that many American owners don't pay any attention to maintenance schedules, and just wait until something breaks. Some cars are forgiving of that, and some aren't.

Nowadays I rank cars into roughly 3 categories: those that hardly ever break no matter what you do, those that are fine if you do what you're told, and those that break no matter what you do.

>>> The phrase "Disagree and commit" only makes sense when two peers (or groups thereof) agree in discussing a decision in equal terms, and committing to whatever the decision is.

Where does the "disagree" part come in to it then?

>>> Why? It seems like a novelty and crumple zones were added to cars for a reason - a feature stainless steel likely cannot replicate.

I think it's unlikely that a company that has launched 3 wildly successful, completely new cars already has gone this far with the cybertruck and hasn't thought of crumple zones.

>>> Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.

I would not have known this if they hadn't written this article explaining how stupid Elon Musk is. So the filing appears to be doing a pretty good job of publicizing X's side of the story.

>>> millions of Americans are forced to sleep in tents on sidewalks.

Do you have a source for this?

This maybe be true, but it doesn't come close to explaining the situation. Going back to one my my examples: we are based in the US and the agency staff I mentioned are based mostly in South America. I'm not sure what their local tz is but they generally keep to US Eastern hours. In contrast the US staff are spread across all US timezones. Still the US based staff are somehow more integral.

It's a good question. There's just something about being in the same country. It's hard to explain why though.

I work for a fully remote company. Most of us are based in the US but the company also hires people from some other countries through some kind of agency. Even though many, probably a majority of the US-based people are immigrants (myself included), and many don't speak English any better than the agency people, there's still somehow a clear divide. The agency people are great - talented, skilled, no issues. But somehow they understand the business less. Their contributions are purely technical. It's clear that the company could not just can us all and hire the same number of agency guys, but it's hard to explain why.

My previous employer once tried to outsource some stuff to India and sent a guy over there to oversee it. It didn't go well. But we had lots of Indian people before and since in the company, and they were great. They had the same background, same education. But they were local to the company.

I often think of the first iPhone as an extreme example of what I'm trying to say. It was built in China using parts sourced from China. But it was invented in California, and it had to be. From the inventors and the builders there's a sort of spectrum, a range of people, like the developers who conceived and wrote the first killer apps - and the closer you are to the inventing side of things, the closer you need to be to the heart of the company.

If I had to put sum it up in a word, I'd say it's "ambiguity". Knowing what to do when you don't have exact instructions requires you to be steeped in the same culture as the CEO and the main market. This isn't a fixed thing: I'm sure there's a market for luxury devices in China now that Americans find it hard to understand. But in general the countries that are the most developed have already experienced what other countries are going through, and thus they are uniquely positioned to dictate what the next big thing is.

So companies will always have to do some hiring locally, and the harder the job, the more important it is to be local.

Right but the argument (the good one) isn't that they're paid less - it's that you're paid less because they are available. If US employers couldn't import workers they'd have to pay you more.

I'm not sure what their budget is but I wouldn't be surprised if this is cheap.

I will never understand why it isn't simply called The Crabula.

>>> It’s a bit scary though cause in their TOS they can just remove your profile and tell you to F off with no warning or explanation like they did to me…

Well literally any company can do that so nothing surprising there.

What is the infringement exactly?

I don't understand your second sentence but you might want to look at Office Space - it's a movie about software developers made by the same creator as Silicon Valley (Mike Judge).

I don't think it's a lie, but I think it's an illusion. Today's outcomes are tomorrow's opportunities. If you take two people and give them equal opportunities, then check in again five years later, they won't be in the same position any longer. But this means they don't have equal opportunities any longer.

To be committed to equal opportunities is to deny people the right to take advantage of better outcomes. But then what's the point in trying?

I don't know how new it is. Suppose they put an actress who looks vaguely like her in that context - i.e. appearing on the set of some non-denominational superhero movie, in such a way that it's clearly supposed to be a reference to her. That is OK. In fact Marvel does other stuff with these characters, where they deliberately give them different faces and voices so that they don't have to pay the actors!

Now what if the actress is actually a dead ringer for her? That happens. There's only so many ways to make a face and there's over 7 billion people out there. We're still talking about a real person now. I think that's a harder question to answer, even before we bring AI into it. To be sure the discount Scarlett actress owns her own face and has the right to work. But is she forbidden from appearing in a context that's calculated to make people think she's Scarlett Johansson? This would mean she has less freedom to work just because of the misfortune[1] of looking like SJ!

[1] I know, I know.

>>> Irrespective of the history, the current situation is not very complex: it's a one sided war where Israel is the occupier (responsible for a lot of inhumane actions), and Palestinians, represented by Hamas, are resisting by whatever means necessary (no matter inhumane e.g the Oct 7th attack).

I don't believe this for a second. It gets repeated a lot. I've grown very skeptical and mistrustful of political arguments that begin with "It's simple...". Having grown up in a country who's situation is often compared with Israel/Palestine (although thankfully on a far smaller scale) I can tell you it's never simple. It's not simple to the people who live there and it's utterly impenetrable to those who don't. Most of the trouble is caused by people who insist that it's simple.

>>> Peace is usually in the hands of the more powerful, the one who has more, and can give more

What makes you say this? Nothing I have seen makes me think that this is true. A few hundred people can keep a country in a state of chaos for years no matter what everyone else wants.

* not starting a part time degree earlier (started at 39). * not starting a business of some kind (anything)

You wouldn't be carrying it accidentally. If you carry one every day then you typically forget about it.

Having one in the luggage is a bit different. In all likelihood he used that bag for a car trip and just left the gun in there. That's a bit harder to explain imo because I generally start with an empty bag when I pack for a flight but it could happen if it's in a separate compartment or something. Some people own a lot of guns and knowing exactly where they are at all times is just not feasible.

Baby Rudin? Sorry couldn't resist.

Happens all the time. They have signs up all over the place at every airport in most states warning you not to pass a certain point if you're carrying.

I have recurring nightmares about it.

Can't read the article, but I wonder how he got caught if it was in his carry on luggage. Do they screen that again in HK after you land?

As someone who really feels the effect of dry air in the winter and has tried all the commonly available types of humidifier, I'll just say skip everything and get the big, wicking type aka evaporative humidifiers. They are the only thing that works well with tap water and the only type that has the kind of output you need for even a small apartment.

>> Seems like THE most important news to me right now. This is not just a tech board but for discussion of major current events as well.

The usual explanation when this happens is that, no, it's not for discussion of current events, at least not that current. It was the same when the Wagner group launched their attempted coup in Russia. While it was unfolding threads were being flagged here at the rate of a dozen or so every hour.