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robocat

13,912 karma · joined September 30, 2011

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robocat··on The tilde in your PATH may not be your HOME
′ Prime = Feet, minutes, or first derivative

″ Double prime = Inches, seconds, or second derivative

‴ Triple prime = Third derivative or specialized notation

And a diversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditto_mark

robocat··on Show HN: Happy Hangul Day! An RNN for Generating Korean Handwriting Strokes
I am hoping to try learning Korean. This looks useful if the writing speed could be controlled. For the moment I guess I could just edit the SVG.

Sorry for changing thread topic.

Cheers

robocat··on The RAM shortage is bringing back DDR4
EU nope.

The EU Ban on the Destruction of Unsold Clothing: https://transition-pathways.europa.eu/textiles/opinions/eu-b...

robocat··on Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from Norway, 2021–2025
Looks like a lesson in how to play zero-sum games to lose.

The USA is better at playing the zero-sum game of where to begin a business. Zero-sum because many businesses are winner-takes-all and the country that business starts-up in is the one that wins.

Business founders are greedy (almost by definition), and a country needs to think what marginally motivates a founder to keep on going (or to founding 2nd/3rd business).

Hate Meta, or even hate Zuckerberg, but the USA is winning export earnings from the rest of the world because of Meta (and likewise other billionaire companies).

On the third foot, I'm guessing Zuckerberg has other motivations than more dollars?

The game isn't equitable, and the wealth disparity is heinous, and perhaps even the products are despicable. However everyone in the USA is living off the back of that wealth coming into the country.

It is really noticable in New Zealand where top marginal rate is 39% and GST (sales tax) is 15%. Why work an hour to bring in in a dollar to NZ when you get less than 50 cents (after all the other taxes). Our left parties want to tax wealth at 50%+ (if 2% wealth tax and drawdown of 4% ). Invisible inflation makes the taxation much much higher.

A wealth tax of 1% sounds trivial, but it isn't when compared to risk-free returns after drawdowns.

Unfortunately most voters are not founders, so they don't understand marginal motivation. And voters don't understand who brings money into the country. Voters just want increasing amounts of money spent, and politicians cater to them.

If anyone here is a game mechanics designer, what do you most notice about the motivation of taxing wealth?

robocat··on OpenAI annualised revenues $20B less than previously signalled
That is a caricature.

Sam parlayed working for YC into owning a significant holding of Reddit (and other companies?).

To me, he appears to be a successful parasite that selects the fattest hosts. There are plenty of people that laud VC culture.

robocat··on The super intelligence shit is a humiliation ritual for OpenAI
> those that are loyal will get more rewards

Seems remarkably hopeful within a lose lose culture.

Negative incentives seem more likely: punishment for disloyalty.

The loyal just get rugpulled.

robocat··on Our $445M Series D
That is worst possible outcome thinking.

If you consistently fail (or give up) at the very last interview, there's something rather wrong.

Your median/average should be better.

robocat··on Why people don't want to have children any more
> no reason for 9 kids today

I've always felt more kids makes for better adults.

Although I've just realized that I don't really have any friends from one-child families (and I myself have two siblings). Sampling bias, or just statistically normal for XGen?

I'm XGen and two dear friends are from 7 kid families (not due to religious reasons). I've always felt they had some maturity I lacked, eminating from having many siblings to get on with.

Does one have kids for them, or for oneself?

robocat··on House with 15m underground tunnels for sale for 300k
However your comment is confusing because you are replying to a sentence about ⓑ, but you're talking about ⓐ.

A big house is sold to people as an investment in future value (ⓐ).

More importantly a big house is often driven by a not-so-hidden desire to show off to others a massive status symbol (a tragic McMansion), and high status is also ⓐ.

Of course a big house can be ⓑ: but it is less common to see crazy money spent on large whims (assuming having enough wealth to be able to burn pointless dollars).

Sorry if I'm mansplaining - but I just don't understand why you'd say something so obvious, while implying something so disconnected.

A ⓑ house can have a high valuation. The thesis of the dichotomy is about intent, not about outcomes. And we often have mixed intents so it isn't as black&white as I stated it.

robocat··on 10-year Treasury yield climbs above 5.3% to a level not seen in 24 years
Let's pick one dimension: hip replacement costs in NZ versus USA. A poor example since fewer of working age.

Looks like surgical costs are similar when adjusted for GDP. The USA system isn't more expensive in comparison with the NZ system.

Replacement is free on the NZ public health system, but I've seen the painful years of waiting, the majority in my experience have to endure. A critical situation like my solo-mum friend who needed hips replaced was grossly delayed: hellish years trying to bring up her young children.

Statistics are very different from outcomes.

robocat··on House with 15m underground tunnels for sale for 300k
There are two types of homes:

ⓐ: A financial asset where you landlord yourself, always worrying about the valuation by others. Think rectiliniar greige.

ⓑ: Your home, lived in and modified to your wants and whimseys. Often over or under capitalized.

The first home we buy is usually a financial instrument type ⓐ.

If you can buck your initial programming/conditioning, you can get ⓑ with effort and luck.

robocat··on Across the Globe, People Increasingly Say Social Media Is Harming Democracy
> printed out millions of leaflets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_New_Zealand_election_fund...

Perhaps funded by USA fundies. A million dollars is a lot of influence in New Zealand elections.

robocat··on In Ukraine, distributed renewables foil Russia's assaults
> same power my oven pulls

Exactly the point of the article: that power is many times what a streetlamp uses or can provide.

Your charging likely wouldn't work from a streetlamp.

> Are you from the past?

No need to be snarky. Read guidelines.

I had two brass taps stolen from outside my house and the thieves left the main water line in broken. Worth nothing - maybe it was kids? The plumber cost me plenty to fix it. The inconvenience cost me more. In another suburb I had my spare tire stolen: for the aluminium rim.

I was thinking of catalytic converter thefts: an industry of theft that was constructed around valuable untraceable metals. Fortunately I haven't seen that in my neighborhood.

robocat··on Device detection and occupancy monitoring for Airbnb hosts
> nice things

I've been constructing my own fantasy that there is an emergent-trust-group-of-respectful-people where "nice things" are just normal.

Perhaps implies an opposite group of defective arseholes together?

Maybe aspirational but the idea is to just be reliably good and eventually others trust you and you become part of a trust network.

I've had it happen at the scale of individuals: once you've shown you're trustworthy and unselfish then many people seem to respond to that with goodness.

Most people can smell selfishness such as "manifestation" thinking. I find it difficult to be generous without intent of obligations. I believe it only works if you're genuinely good with no strings attached.

Kindness is easier.

I'm no fan of karma or religion or magical woowoo: even though ultimately the idea perhaps has the same roots as those.

It isn't reciprocation: that is transactional investment. Reciprocation definitely works fabulously well. However it has debts and credits, and I have some sort of unreasonable antipathy towards those both. We live in a transactional society, and many people inspect every action of others for their needy goals. Or people have their own currencies and balance sheets.

I try to frame the fantasy more rationally as an emergent behaviour of society as a response to defectors.

So far my main negative proof against the whole idea is that I've had life pretty good even though I have been normal levels of selfishness. I'm still working on how that fits in.

Meanwhile I'm giving the experiment a good go. I like to test against my own reality. Finding I'm wrong is usually valuable.

It's a poorly thought out fantasy. Too many reasons why it is broken: Like seeing givers enable takers, or selfish people winning good things.

(edited to make clearer)

robocat··on In Ukraine, distributed renewables foil Russia's assaults
Streetlights are low power.

Car chargers are high power.

For example https://electricbrighton.com/news/considerations-for-lamp-po... says charging times are 18 hours, which is hardly overnight.

Plus you couldn't do it anywhere where thieves steal copper. Car charging cables would quickly become a theft target.

robocat··on Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes
Governments and businesses are symbiotic.

You could just as equally say that governments are created by businesses and that governments feed by taxing corporations.

You can frame it either way to make an argument from either direction.

We mostly argue that businesses depend upon our government because reasons.

robocat··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
> if you've become a parent there's a good chance your parents did too

Crap and nonsense! Rewrite:

Once someone's survived to become a parent, there's a good chance the grandparents survived as well (assuming the norm is to breed ASAP).

robocat··on 10-year Treasury yield climbs above 5.3% to a level not seen in 24 years
> and they can't or won't do it

Instead of blaming Congress, perhaps blame democracy.

Voters loath austerity, and they support spending.

Watch the experiment happening live in New Zealand elections. Our incumbant conservative party (National) is aiming for a budget at about 30% of GDP. Our progressive party (Labour) wants to increase taxes and increase spending to maybe 33% of GDP.

You can see if voters care about keeping spending in check, because it seems likely to be a central issue of campaigns. Although we have MMP voting so it isn't totally clear. Also note that I think most of our politicians would be seen as left-wing if looked at by anyone on the right.

robocat··on 10-year Treasury yield climbs above 5.3% to a level not seen in 24 years
> Single payer Healthcare

Have you studied them in other countries? I suggest you inspect your assumptions by looking at what already happens.

Voters want infinite "free" healthcare from their politicians, so healthcare costs continuously increase. You have little recourse to say no to taxes.

In New Zealand ~17% of government expenditure was on health in 2000 and in 2026 it was ~22%.

In NZD it went from ~$10B to ~$40B (inflation and demographics are also an influence).

Privately paid also exists, but only ~1/3 the spending of public health. NZ government ACC spending is also huge.

Government ownership does not fix the problems you wishfully hope it might.

robocat··on NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart
> Avro Vulcan

For anyone interested, they're referenced here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck

robocat··on California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states
You are just repeating the framing of the article. Next you'll mention a citation from a biased source.

Tht article doesn't mention the majority of those marriages between 17 year old female "children" marrying male "adults" (that are 18, 19 or 20 years old).

Children versus adults is a common framing, that is repeated by even the less biased sources such as the BBC or PBS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interactive/child-marriag...

Crossing a legal line from a "child" of 17 to an "adult" of 18 doesn't have the implications about real world differences in wisdom we might hope for.

robocat··on California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states
I've seen a pattern of judgemental women and men saying they are thinking of the children, while not understanding or not giving a shit, just how much hurt they cause those same children.

Our "justice" and "health" systems in New Zealand can cause lifelong harm to kids by black-and-white following the rules (at best, because wisdom is difficult or caring is risky).

robocat··on California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states
Calling two midteens having sex "rape" or even worse "pedophilia" is plain abusive.

I'm not talking about older men here.

I'm saying that we need to be careful to avoid creating harm where there was none.

robocat··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
I think you're ignoring risk.

Even if you've saved enough for 1 to 3 years of university, there's a risk that you won't get a job especially if you're getting towards 40+.

Drawing down savings is a very high risk move, since you could easily never recover those savings because you may struggle to get a job that has a better ability to save as much.

robocat··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
Fairly normal if having kids before 20 is normal.

And I suspect disaster to have correlated chances of killing parents or grandparents or children. i.e. if you've become a parent there's a good chance your parents did too.

Our own lived experiences are likely outliers, since developed countries have different outcomes than the past.

robocat··on Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?
Conpiracy theory: someone wants to track you. It looks like a typo but switching one letter in an uncommon word can make the word a unique enough fingerprint to track an account. Of course I'm assuming you're typing on a computer that has been compromised.

Alternatively you have fat fingers and use Linux (is there a correlation?) and you hit AltGr+T. From Wikipedia about British keyboard:

  Using the AltGr key on Linux produces many other characters and symbols, e.g. ¹²³€½{[]}@łe¶ŧ←↓→øþæßðđŋħjĸł«»¢“”nµΩŁE®Ŧ¥↑ıØÞƧЪŊĦJ&Ł<>©‘’Nº×÷· (If reconfigured as a compose key, an even larger repertoire is available)
It appears your brain has been compromised and needs an antivirus scam.
robocat··on When did Google get so weird?

  DBA most likely means “don’t believe anything” or “don’t believe anybody”
Just checking Yandex - it did give a better result for "flat earth" as a search with lots of great YouTube videos near the top. Wikipedia came in at the 10th result in the list so that was good too.

I'm sure Yandex welcomes malcontented revolutionary thinkers. To quote Yandex:

  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
robocat··on Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?
> Unfortunately in our society it always comes down to an issue of cost

A ugly way to say that our society has limited resources.

Working hours especially are a zero-sum choice.

We require some way to choose between different usages of people's time. All choices are suboptimal. Our societies have slowly developed something that mostly works.

Money as a topic is distracting: instead think about how we allocate the lives (time) of people: especially when trading one person's life/work against another's rights.

robocat··on Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?
> þunish

Today I learned that the Icelandic keyboard has a dedicated key for typing þ

robocat··on Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?
I wonder what the troublemakers learnt?

Although for self-selected friends my personal saying is that "All the smartest left school at 15". My other friends are academically educted which doesn't smarten up anyone.

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