jawns

I'm a Delawarean, and I have done research and reporting about the state's unique role in corporate America.

You may wonder why two-thirds of the Fortune 500 are incorporated in Delaware. Is it because the cost of incorporation is lower than in other states, or because corporate tax rates are lower? Those are factors, but they are not the primary reason. The primary reason is risk avoidance, and in particular legal risk avoidance.

Delaware benefits from a flywheel effect: Because so many companies are incorporated in the state, its Chancery Court has a more developed set of case law than other states, and so outcomes of lawsuits involving corporations are more predictable -- which makes it an even more attractive place to incorporate, which continues the flywheel effect.

The down side is that the state is incredibly dependent on corporate licensing fees and escheatment. States like Nevada have, in recent years, been competing against Delaware as a corporate haven, and if we start to see a significant migration, we'll be in a real pickle, because the state imposes no sales tax and has relatively low property taxes.

My only use case for this is animating custom Slack emojis.

But trust, I'm a have a field day with that.

> A democracy with 75% voter turnout is healthier than a democracy with 50% voter turnout even exactly the same politicians got elected, because citizens participating in a democratic process signals that they value the process and want to keep it.

I disagree.

In Russia in 2024, Vladimir Putin got 87% of the vote, with 78% reported voter turnout, far higher than in any US election. Do you think that signals that Russian citizens value democracy and want to keep the current process, where Putin invariably wins by a landslide?

I'm not saying that people shouldn't get out and vote if they feel so moved. But voter turnout isn't intrinsically good or bad, nor does it signal a healthy democracy.

What DOES signal a healthy democracy?

- Meaningful electoral choice, including the choice of minor-party candidates. Ranked-choice voting can help here, because it's not as susceptible to vote spoiling as the "first past the post" system currently in widespread use in the US.

- Non-gerrymandered districts. Independent review and judicial checks and balances can help.

- Electoral competitiveness, where incumbents and established parties can realistically lose power. Term limits can help here.

- Accountability of elected officials.

- Integrity of the electoral process.

- Peaceful transfer of power.

This reminds me of a billboard I saw about 15 years ago when the state of Delaware was considering changing its laws to permit new casinos in addition to the three that had been grandfathered in when the restrictions went into place.

Delaware Park, one of those three casinos, put up a billboard opposing the bill, and it said, "No more casinos! THREE IS ENOUGH!"

It just goes to show that corporations will take any position -- even a casino taking an anti-casino position -- as long as it's self-serving.

I am a big fan of both enclose.horse and gerrymandle.com. I play both daily.

But this rip-off of gerrymandle.com makes me feel less inclined to continue playing enclose.horse.

And yes, it is a rip-off, not merely a riff on the general puzzle game of this type.

It's akin to joke stealing among comedians. It makes you lose respect for the joke stealer, even if their original stuff is good.

"DoorDash and Instacart believe that communities benefit when Main Street competes"

That's rich! Communities benefit when small businesses compete against each other. Announced as part of a merger of two giant public companies.

I can understand alphabetical ordering in some circumstances, but if the point is to indicate which model family is lighter or heavier, surely atomic numbers should be taken into account?!?

Argon - 18

Boron - 5

Carbon - 6

I don't think I'll be able to cope with this level of elemental disorder.

Even if we can show that it is technically possible to model a universe like ours to the degree that our current perception of reality suggests exists, there are three other big factors that would need to be weighed:

Is it feasible? What Dyson sphere level of power would be needed to maintain such a simulation? Is that level of energy available to whomever is running the simulation?

Is there a positive ROI? What does this advanced civilization get out of running such an expensive simulation?

Is it moral? The simulation involves sentient creatures who are capable of deeply contemplating their own existence, capable of feeling rapturous pleasure and indescribable pain and loss, and ostensibly capable of making moral choices that range from heroic to depraved. Doesn't there come a point where the beings in a simulation are so close to the beings in "base reality" that the same moral principles apply? If you press a button that kicks off a simulation where humans can torture and murder each other, behaving essentially identically to humans in "base reality," aren't you in some sense facilitating those deaths?

I've been a user for more than 20 years. With their shared hosting plan, which was about $5/mo. when I joined and is now $13/mo, I've been able to host my personal blog and professional site, as well as probably 3 dozen other sites over the years, including several that have hit the HN front page and never got hugged by the squeeze of death.

Honestly, compared to some of the professional environments I've worked in, it's a joy to have an idea, create a few PHP files, and in a matter of seconds have that idea live.

I know the log scale of that chart is valuable when surveying the full breadth of possibilities, but I would encourage people to make decisions between nearby models based on linear scaling. Linear cost is often more useful for making the actual decision.

Here's the relevant criminal code for disorderly conduct in Philly, if anyone wants to play armchair lawyer:

https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/philadelphia/latest/ph...

It's the prisoner's dilemma.

My guess is they'd all prefer to cooperate, but they know that if any of their competitors defect, then they're worse off for it. Plus, there are legal hurdles to direct cooperation among competitors.

We saw a show of uncoordinated unity after the Jan. 6 insurrection, but as soon as that unity showed signs of fraying, it became hard to sustain.

I doubt this livestream will actually happen, but if it does, I hope people will realize ahead of time that this will not be enjoyable or entertaining to watch.

A paralyzed guy, sitting in a wheelchair, will be shot, slump over, die, blood will ooze from the wound, and then that's it.

His actions were murderous and atrocious, but there is no value in watching his life being extinguished in real time. Just because it is available to be seen doesn't mean it benefits us to see it.

I am afraid that many people will realize that too late and have to deal with the memory, if not the pangs of conscience, of having watched a snuff film.

In my neck of the woods "Linux ISOs" is a euphemism for porn.

It is generous of you to share your "Linux ISOs" with your family and friends.

One thing I've noticed with the bigger gas station chains near me is a push to have users download their mobile app, set up ACH payments, and use that as their payment method instead of credit cards in exchange for 10 cents off per gallon. From the merchant side of things, they're paying about $0.60 to process the transaction via ACH, versus $2-$2.50 for credit card transactions, per fill-up. So even if they're merely breaking even once the discounts are factored in, they're still disrupting the credit card companies' dominance.

I would not be surprised if rather than continuing to battling it out with the credit card companies to negotiate for lower fees, more and more retailers adapt to the cashless economy by leaning on ACH in lieu of credit cards, especially in market segments where repeat business is common (basically any retailer that has an existing loyalty program).

To put it another way: Sure, litigation is an option, but even if you win the concessions you want, it will leave the credit card companies entrenched. Pushing more customers to pay via non-credit-card methods has the benefit of more immediate financial impact, less reliance on the legal system, and deterioration of the power that led to the anticompetitive behavior in the first place.

There's obviously a strong incentive for homeowners to participate: they don't have to pay for a service that is often valued at hundreds of dollars.

But what is the incentive for contractors to participate, and how does it overcome the enormous disincentive of "You are training your replacement"?

My guess is that truly skilled contractors in these trades are not hurting for work. So I doubt they're going to be swayed by just a few more extra jobs added to their docket.

Less skilled contractors who are desperate for work might be taken in, but then the quality of their output is likely to be worse, and the value of that training data is likely to be low.

My guess is that people in skilled trades who are used to working with their hands are going to be even more skeptical than white-collar folks about an AI revolution, and more guarded against change in that direction.

The worst is homogeneously misinformed.

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In humid regions, there is no practical limit that would cause any noticeable effects on the humidity of outdoor air. There is just so much water in the air that even if you were running dehumidifiers across all available land area, the air is still going to feel humid.

Another possible answer to the "What's in it for him?" question:

The Everest effect.

George Mallory: "The first question you will ask, and the one I have to answer is, 'What's the point of climbing Mount Everest?' And my answer should be, 'It's no use.' There is not the slightest prospect of any gain. Oh, maybe we can learn a little about the behavior of the human body at height, and medicine can change our observations for aviation purposes. But nothing else could come of it. We will not bring back a little gold or silver or gemstones or coal or iron. We will not find soil or earth that we can grow crops that produce food. There is no point. So if you can't understand that there's something in humans that responds to the challenges of this mountain and goes to meet those challenges, then the struggle that ensues is a struggle from life itself upwards, and you won't see why we're leaving. What we get from this adventure is just joy. We don't live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to enjoy life. That is the meaning of life and the purpose of living."

Why generate all of these papers? Because, for the first time, he can.

Doesn't have to be for the money or fame or potential for speaking engagements. It could simply be that he wants to test the limits of what's possible.

Is anyone familiar enough with the legal aspects of this case to have an informed opinion about how much she is likely to get in a settlement?

I would think that if a pet causes a high amount of real damage, the landlord should still be able to seek remuneration for that damage. They just can't charge for it in advance.

I would love for someone to package up some kind of script or AI skill that evaluates your current terminal config/set-up and applies all of these tips and tricks. For instance, it might detect that you currently use ag, install ripgrep, and offer a short tutorial on how users accustomed to ag should use it. Or it might look at the history of git commands you've run and offer tips on efficiency improvements.

I could see this being fantastic for classification tasks. Last year I shifted from using LLMs for bulk data classification tasks (1M transcripts) to generating embeddings and categorizing based on cosine similarity. It saved a ton of costs and time, but wasn't as accurate as LLMs. This seems like it can give me Terra-level classification ability with the cost/speed I need.

My take: If your app needs to update and preserve state (using SQLite or any other DB), it is probably not something you want to pass around as a bundled file.

Or at least, it's extremely limiting, compared with hosting it somewhere on the web, which is not that hard to do these days.

Think of the workflow: Any time the state changes, you need to email a new Capsule file to whoever else is using the app. And one would think the state would change at least occasionally, because otherwise there's little reason to use a DB.

Alternatively, you can just host it on the web, the DB state dynamically updates, and it's automatically available to anyone with app access. Isn't that a lot simpler?

I have a custom agent that I call my "G.S.D." (Get Stuff Done) agent.

It is explicitly not a foreman, task routing, or an orchestrator agent. It has a bias toward direct action and is instructed to only delegate when necessary.

I've found that this approach yields significantly faster results, without much of a quality trade-off, than an agent whose primary impulse is to delegate.

In contrast, HydraFusion starts with a task routing step, then sequential planning, execution, and review stages. My guess is that this workflow is best for people who are prioritizing cost over speed for the same level of quality.

I'm no lawyer, but I can't see how the judge is able to square this with a plain reading of the law.

Here is the Virginia code on contributing to the delinquency of a minor: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter5/secti...

The only portion that is even remotely relevant is:

> (b) renders a child delinquent, in need of services, in need of supervision, or abused or neglected as defined in § 16.1-228;

However, here is that section: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/16.1-228/

Paragraph 2 is the relevant one:

> No child whose parent or other person responsible for his care allows the child to engage in independent activities without adult supervision shall for that reason alone be considered to be an abused or neglected child, provided that (a) such independent activities are appropriate based on the child's age, maturity, and physical and mental abilities and (b) such lack of supervision does not constitute conduct that is so grossly negligent as to endanger the health or safety of the child. Such independent activities include traveling to or from school or nearby locations by bicycle or on foot, playing outdoors, or remaining at home for a reasonable period of time.

I would think that in order to justify a conviction, prosecutors would have had to overcome the above by showing evidence that this particular child is INCAPABLE of safely walking to a nearby location within his neighborhood, or that the child ACTUALLY DID put himself in danger, i.e. by entering the pond.

Something tells me that evidence does not exist, and the judge ruled based on something other than a correct reading of the law.

Present these two domain names to the average person:

1) benedict.cumberbatch.name

2) drstrange.co.uk

I expect the average person would assume that for the domain 1, .name is the TLD, cumberbatch.name is registered by a private entity, and benedict (and any other subdomains associated with cumberbatch.name) is a subdomain fully controlled by that private entity.

Whereas for domain 2, I think the average person will view ".co.uk" the same way they view ".com", even though technically it is both a ccTLD and a second-level domain.

I don't think those are comparable, because when you register a .co.uk domain, you are selecting one name that precedes .co.uk, similar to how you register one name that precedes .com.

Whereas with .name, you are choosing what appears to be a subdomain, followed by what appears to be a domain name. But under the hood, you do not own all subdomains for that domain name; you own only the combination of first_name.last_name.name.

I have a .science domain and a .com domain.

Even though .science was launched in 2014 (more than a decade ago), I still consider it a non-standard TLD and still deal regularly with difficulties around its use. (For instance, you wouldn't believe how many online services reject email addresses than end in .science because they use regexes that exclude TLDs with 7 letters.)

Likewise, I've registered .lol and .fun domains but never would have assumed that just because they're available now, they will be available in perpetuity.

In that sense, .name as a third-level TLD is even more non-standard, because the standard way domain registration works is by choosing a single "second level" domain name, then adding subdomains.