ocschwar

The present president of Argentina is a Trump-testicle-gargler. That would make me nervous if I were a Falklander.

Big battery packs are insane to put inside a house. I'm biased because I work for a utility scale storage company, but really, 2nd law of thermodynamics, people.

The more potential energy you pack into a volume, the higher the chance the energy will be released at a time not of your choosing and in a fashion that will make you sad. We put our product in industrial zoned places where the worst case scenario for a fire is pre-planned to not be catastrophic and so that no homes will be lost. Why put your house at risk? So you can cosplay as Henry David Thoreau and take some stance against your power utility?

If I went 100% solar, I'm happy to pay the utility to be the middleman while I sell my excess solar to the neighbors.

Some of my favorite novels are David Lodge's campus novels, and an element in them is the never-ending lure of American academia for British scholars.

Now it's the EU's turn. Computer science is already becoming very, very French. See you guys in Grenoble.

Michigan relies on fast trade with Ontario. Anything that interrupts it hits Michigan hard.

What we're witnessing is active malice against two populations: people who are dysphoric and would like help to be comfortable in their own bodies, and people who are perfectly comfortable as they are and would like the rest of us to accept that they will not take measures to change their trans-gender physical characteristics.

What we need is a campaign with a firm message of "hands off, all of them."

There are two problems at play here. One is that the science involved pertains to mental health care, which means psychiatrists. Meaning the same specialty that tried psychotherapy and blaming "cold" mothers for autism, and then had a lobotomies for everyone fad, and then got too enamored with electroconvulsive therapy.

I'm too young to have witnessed those, but I did personally see the effects when they launched the Drug of the Month Club in the 1990s. It's hard to look at how they treat gender dysphoria and not suspect it's yet another episode.

BUT....

At the same time what's going on with the Republicans is sheer malice. And it must be fought on those grounds.

Most of the statues we're talking about were installed during the Civil Rights era as an explicit flex meant to intimidate African Americans.

I was told there would be cake.

For my first full time job, I was a junior sysadmin. My toolset had to include LOAF floppies, one FREEDOS floppy, and a bent paper clip. I had an office. My office. With a door. Since then, every advance in my career raised my skill level, raised my pay, and shrank my office. First came the open office plan. Then came hot desks. Now I'm all-remote, and I mostly float around libraries and cafes when I'm not zooming.

The people making these RTO demands should remember they are demanding people meet in person in what is little more than a set of hot desks dedicated to one company. It's really demoralizing to have to come to work to such an environment where you can't even put a backpack's worth of things on a desk and leave them there at 5 PM.

If the managers making these demands vacate their own dedicated offices and go hotdesk for a while, they'd realize why there's so much pushback on RTO.

Roberts will go down in history as a worse Justice than Taney for this.

Reach out to the developer behind 91-DIVOC. That won't cover red states that go dark when and if they do, but it was invaluable to me during the covid pandemic.

The president has access to information that I do not. It's wasted on him. You know this as well as I.

A narcissist like Trump doesn't have better information than I do.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Trump wasn't confident in the theory. He is not confident in anything. He does not care about the truth or falsity of anything he says. He only cares about it serving his interests.

That pardon means that person is available for subpoena and cannot decline to answer any question.

It's not like we will ever have a chance to do a useful reassessment of what happened in Wuhan when everyone involved is scared of being designated the scapegoat and executed. And I do mean executed. If the CCP feels that it's useful for the state to find someone there and give them a lethal injection, they'll do it. So it's ridiculous to expect any cooperation from anyone there.

And ultimately it doesn't matter. If a contagious virus is coming to your country, your best response is independent of its origins. And if your response was a complete shitshow, finding a scapegoat in Wuhan won't make your response any less of a shitshow.

The US's response to covid under Trump was a ridiculous shitshow. Nothing more to it.

Good!

Academia is done growing. For every full professor, there will be ONE spot for a full professor when he retires. That's a lot of grad students and postdocs who need to find something else to do with their education.

Most postdoc positions should not even exist.

I once asked ChatGPT:

It is possible to map parallels between the act of worshipping God and the process of using an agile methodology. Weekly services are akin to the regular standup meeting. God is the ultimate product owner, and His representative, your clergyman, is the scrum master. The goal is to prepare in time for the final Code Freeze, which is to say, one's death. Can you elaborate further about the similarities and parallels and expand on how they can be used to leverage synergies in the operation of a religious congregation?

It answered:

Certainly! The comparison between worshipping God and using an agile methodology can offer unique insights into both practices. Here’s a detailed exploration of the parallels and how these can be leveraged to enhance the operation of a religious congregation:

### Parallels Between Worshipping God and Agile Methodology

1. *Weekly Services and Regular Standup Meetings*: - *Weekly Services*: These are regular gatherings where the congregation meets to worship, reflect, and receive guidance. - *Standup Meetings*: In agile methodology, these are brief, daily meetings where team members discuss progress, challenges, and plans. - *Parallel*: Both serve as regular checkpoints to ensure alignment with goals, provide motivation, and address any issues promptly. They foster a sense of community and shared purpose.

2. *God as the Ultimate Product Owner*: - *Product Owner*: In agile, the product owner is responsible for defining the vision, managing the backlog, and ensuring the team delivers value. - *God*: Seen as the ultimate authority and guide, setting the overarching vision and purpose for the congregation. - *Parallel*: Just as the product owner provides direction and prioritizes tasks, God’s teachings and commandments guide the faithful in their spiritual journey.

3. *Clergyman as the Scrum Master*: - *Scrum Master*: Facilitates the agile process, removes impediments, and ensures the team follows best practices. - *Clergyman*: Leads the congregation, offers spiritual guidance, and helps individuals overcome personal and communal challenges. - *Parallel*: Both roles focus on serving the community, fostering growth, and ensuring smooth progress toward goals.

4. *Final Code Freeze and One’s Death*: - *Code Freeze*: A point in development where no more changes can be made, and the product is considered ready for release. - *Death*: The ultimate moment when one’s earthly journey ends, and their spiritual readiness is evaluated. - *Parallel*: Both represent the culmination of ongoing efforts, where the final state reflects the continuous work and preparation done over time.

### Leveraging Synergies in a Religious Congregation

1. *Regular Check-ins*: - Adopt the practice of regular, short check-ins within smaller groups (like agile standups) to discuss spiritual progress, challenges, and support needs. This can foster closer community bonds and provide immediate support.

2. *Clear Vision and Goals*: - Ensure that the congregation understands and aligns with the core spiritual goals and teachings (akin to the product vision). Regularly remind the community of these goals to maintain focus and motivation.

3. *Facilitation and Support*: - Train clergymen and spiritual leaders in facilitation skills to better support and guide their congregations. This can include conflict resolution, active listening, and effective communication.

4. *Continuous Improvement*: - Encourage a culture of continuous improvement where individuals and the community regularly reflect on their spiritual practices and seek ways to grow. This mirrors the agile retrospective practice.

5. *Adaptability and Flexibility*: - Embrace adaptability in programs and activities, allowing the congregation to respond to changing needs and circumstances, similar to how agile teams pivot based on feedback and new information.

6. *Empowerment and Participation*: - Empower members to take active roles in their spiritual journey and community activities, much like team members in agile are encouraged to take ownership and collaborate.

By integrating these agile principles into the operation of a religious congregation, leaders can create a more dynamic, responsive, and supportive environment. This approach not only enhances the spiritual growth of individuals but also strengthens the overall community.

Many of the cities in the region have Carthaginian names. It's a little surreal to see them when you speak Hebrew:

Cadiz: "boundary" - the city that guarded access to Britain. Malaga: "Queen City". Cartagena. Barcelona ("barkel" - blessing)

For my first full time job, I was a junior sysadmin. My toolset had to include LOAF floppies, one FREEDOS floppy, and a bent paper clip.

I had an office. My office. With a door.

Since then, every advance in my career raised my skill level, raised my pay, and shrank my office. First came the open office plan. Then came hot desks. Now I'm all-remote, and I mostly float around libraries and cafes when I'm not zooming.

Seriously, it's so demoralizing to be ordered to come to an open office plan where you don't even have a desk you can unload a backpack's worth of things on. (Not happening to me as I'd have to commute on the Acela.) If the powers that be want a return to the office, it's time to rethink what that means.

The Phoenician alphabet started as the Proto-Sinaitic script. For context, if you're trying to write things down in the Sinai, you're logging the wares carried by caravans going back and forth from Egypt to the Phoenician heartland and back. You don't need the full range of hieroglyphs, so you don't need the training of an Egyptian priest. So you start with a reduced list of symbols.

Someone in this position started using those symbols to register the sounds of the Semitic languages, and the rest is literally history.

I'll put it this way: if it were easy and efficient to take a train from Chicago to Bloomington, Dubuque, Rockford, Ft. Wayne, every one of these places would make the effort to make it worthwhile to ride that train. Instead we just accept that all these places are effectively served by Chicago's OHare Airport, and there's no reason to travel among these places.

In the 90's at MIT they solved the problem by having the civil engineering department teach a C coding class to the non-CS engineers.

There was no pretense that it was even remotely appropriate as a CS class.

I have to admit I kind of inflicted this on my own child. She has her paper diaries, which are sacred, not to be touched, and a box for putting any artifacts she doesn't want me to see. But for any interaction with electronic devices, the rule is "don't do anything you don't want your parents to see. Just assume we can."

But the thing is, her permanent record exists, and I do not control it, so inhibiting her from entering things into it is somewhat called for.

I don't want to stoke panic about violence, but the fact is anything that you do that's prepper-adjacent is something you should do anyway:

1. prep your residence in can't you can't leave for days on end - something you should do to prepare for h5n1.

2. stock a bug out bag: most of you are in range of wild fires. So you need to do it.

> Practically, why are there not militia groups with Navy SEAL/Delta-level tactical abilities?

Because SEAL/Delta units are made up of statistical outliers who can keep their cortisol levels low under conditions that 99% of us absolutely cannot.

The US isn't one country.

When you read things like this, compare the EU to the US, not Ireland to the US.

The Southern US is an archipelago of police states that regularly throw black and poor white citizens into jail on flimsy pretexts. New England, meanwhile is another country altogether.

I had a surreal experience riding a Greyhound bus where I was the only passenger who hadn't just gotten out of prison. They were comparing conditions in various prisons the way you and I might compare coffee shops.

I'm honestly surprised that after 20 years of the Internet "never forgetting" things like this, we haven't gotten a lot better about forgiving them instead.