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throw0101d

8,417 karma · joined January 1, 2023

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throw0101d··on Retirement Is Dead
> Isn't the reserve chute the Old Age Security pension along with the Guaranteed Income Supplement?

CPP benefits are proportional to how much you pay in over your life. OAS is proportional to how long you've lived in Canada and thus 'contributed to society at large'; once your income is CAD >95k/indiviudal OAS starts getting clawed back (IMHO it should be clawed back much sooner).

On top of CPP and OAS it is your responsibility to have personal savings: RRSP/pension, TFSA, etc.

GIS is the 'poverty prevention' program, for people making less than 20-30k:

* https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/ol...

throw0101d··on Retirement Is Dead
There is a lot of misguided thinking about retirement, as shown by things like "Canadian couples say they need $1.7M to retire. Are you on track?":

* https://globalnews.ca/news/11705204/canadian-couples-retirem...

This survey is released by a bank that makes money from AUM fees for things like mutual funds. It is in their interest to think you need more, but most folks do not need as much as they believe. The study tends to be released during "RRSP season", which is close to the last time Canadians are able to put in money into their retirement saving account (RRSP ~ 401(k)) for the current tax year (and get a taxable income reduction).

This (flat) fee-only advisor goes over some of the preconceptions that have:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LmiW4FgAL8

He's put out videos about what you can expect if you have 'only' CA$ 250k saved:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLQk6X3NCPs (single)

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9-8CIvphfI (couple)

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkyvLe66G94 (couple)

Or even a single at 65 with $125k:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEBjIFg08lM

throw0101d··on A Small Telescope That Surprised Me
Ed Ting recently had a good video "Let's Overreact!! Smart Scopes Take Over? Chinese Products are the Best? Astronomy is Dead!?":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYJwgEwxG-U

If you want to get into astronomy, he has a few good beginner advice videos:

* 101 books/binoculars/telescopes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IlmekWsEAQ

* some more books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhbAEx2le7o

throw0101d··on The Cables That Connect the World
Obligatory:

* https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

* https://www.submarinecablemap.com

throw0101d··on Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones
See UK and France:

* https://insidegnss.com/uk-and-france-renew-ties-resilient-pn...

throw0101d··on Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise
> For me, SMRs don't pass the smell test. Buying one big plot of land for a reactor, building one power interconnect, having a localized water impact is way easier and cheaper than many.

Some things would depend on the specific location and the grid around it:

The Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick may be 'overkill' because when it goes down every few years for inspections/retooling, there's little other redundancy available. SMRs would be useful for that regional grid: install 3-4 and one can go down with less fuss.

In (e.g.) Poland there were small/medium coal-fired generation stations near coal mines. If the mines are now empty (or retired for climate change), then the grid connections could be reused for SMRs on an existing generation site: less need to find a new site and build new power pylons, etc.

throw0101d··on Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'
> Twice.

I was led to believe he actually won 3 times. /s

throw0101d··on Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'
The official text for anyone interested (Executive Order 14420):

* https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/hono...

throw0101d··on Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'
Someone remarked that "Niagara Falls" should be renamed "Trump's Tears".

Or perhaps "Lake Michigan" to either "Lake Obama" (since Chicago is on its shores) or "Lake Epstein".

throw0101d··on Trade (and Tariffs)
So that's one (in which Canada happened to win multiple rulings at NAFTA and WTO panels).

Any others?

throw0101d··on Trade (and Tariffs)
> Economists universally think tariffs are dumb policy.

There are a few specific cases when one may want to implement them:

* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/when-are-tariffs-good

One should also be mindful one's manufacturing base:

* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/manufacturing-is-a-war-now

throw0101d··on Trade (and Tariffs)
> This is a pretty reductive take.

Yes, because it's a one-panel comic.

throw0101d··on Trade (and Tariffs)
> The Biden admin went after Canada repeatedly for unfair trade practices […]

What were these practices?

throw0101d··on YouTube Format IDs
> If you don’t even see the difference between 1080p and 720p, there’s something else going on.

If I open a browser window and click on a YT video suggested on the main page, it plays on small portion of the screen of my 14" MacBook: there is little practical visual difference between 720 and 1080 at that 'video box' size.

If I open the same video on my 27" 5K iMac and full screen it there, then yes, there is a difference between 720 and 1080 (and 4K) there.

But I find 60fps does not improve the content / experience in any situation.

throw0101d··on YouTube Format IDs
> Yes. Every single one. It's that simple.

I've found that zero of the videos that I've ever seen that were 60fps improved things: certainly if I went full screen I could notice the resolution of 1080@60 versus 720@30, but in a standard browser window it was none.

throw0101d··on Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]
Somewhat related perhaps, "Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects":

* https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/universal-health-coverage...

Study:

* https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.22.26358689

throw0101d··on YouTube Format IDs
I don't watch too many of those, and those few that I do are more 4X (Civ, Stellaris, etc), so that maybe that's why I don't notice it as an advantage for most of the content I see.
throw0101d··on Tim Curry has died
> The chiropractor massaged his neck, which released a blot clot that went into his brain and gave him a stroke. […] I'll never let a chiropractor touch me.

This is not chiropractor specific:

> Arterial dissection is well known as a potential cause of stroke in young patients. Vertebral artery dissection occurs most commonly in the setting of minor trauma but has been seen in cases of cervical manipulation. With advances in at-home therapeutic modalities for neck pain came the advent of handheld massage guns. These massage guns have gained considerable popularity in recent years, but their safety for use in the cervical region has not been well studied.

* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9197740/

throw0101d··on YouTube Format IDs
> HFR stands for "High Framerate", which means up to 60 FPS, whereas non-HFR is limited to 30 FPS

Personally I find most ((almost?) all?) >30fps generally unnecessary and just chews through bandwidth, monthly (mobile) data caps, and processing/batteries.

Are there specific cases where "HFR" videos are really improving the viewing experience of particular (types of) content?

(Note: in the table it's about support for HFR content, and does not necessarily mean that content is HFR.)

throw0101d··on YouTube Format IDs
"4320p"? Huh:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8K_resolution

throw0101d··on Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices
> RSS. Website. Both have been around for a long time. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

A "foo-announce@" or "foo-alerts@" mailing list.

throw0101d··on Hot Chips 2026: Samsung and HBM Base Die Opportunities
See also recent Asianometry video "SK hynix and the HBM Revolution":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg5tAujp6Go

And from a few years ago "The Special Memory Powering the AI Revolution":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAw63F1W_Us

throw0101d··on NetBSD GSoC 2026 Improving RAIDframe
Reading raid(4) [1] it looks like RAID-6 is not supported: I would think with drives sizes being what they are in recent years (decades?), protection from a double-fault during a re-stripe would be important. Or is RAIDframe mostly supposed to be used for 'smaller situations' (like a boot drive)?

[1] https://man.netbsd.org/raid.4

I first ran across the "RAID-5 is dead" 'meme' almost twenty years ago, with concerns that when drives reached >2TB you get higher chances of failed rebuilds due to BER / UER rates:

* https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-20...

See also 2013 follow-up:

* https://www.zdnet.com/article/has-raid5-stopped-working/

throw0101d··on hdiutil is deprecated in macOS 27 Golden Gate
> It's more like I report a crime and the cops don't do anything about it, a situation in which I feel fairly justified being upset?

Sure. With cops, a public service. But Apple is not a public service (this is an analogy after all).

You gave them money for what they offered at a particular point in time because you thought it provided you value; has Apple taken away anything that you purchased? Did they go from x.2 to x.3 and break/remove something? That's certainly a dick move. But you are still getting what you paid for.

Apple is free to change its offerings in the future based on what it thinks its customers need/want, and you are free to re-evaluate whether those changes still provide you with value, and whether you want to continue giving them money. "I got X in the past so I should continue getting X forever into the future" has never really been promised by any software vendor.

throw0101d··on Woman stranded in Spain after UK's eVisa system mistakes her for twin sister
> This is not a software issue (not directly).

What's really stupid is not being allowed to get on the flight at all.

Like: she's not labelled as a "terrorist", so just let her on the flight as she's not likely to make the plane explode, and let the customs folks take her as a one-off to be dealt with on home soil. Why is it necessary to be pre-approved to even get on the flight?

throw0101d··on The treasury bond mess: is this the demise of the US as a safe haven?
> I'm not a psychopath but how are we supposed to fix the deficit without something like DOGE that can cut programs.

Reverse the taxes of Trump and Bush to start. Then perhaps reverse the tax cuts of Reagan.

A major plank of the GOP's game plan has long been cutting taxes and then complain about too much spending:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

Another plank has been voter suppression:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

throw0101d··on The treasury bond mess: is this the demise of the US as a safe haven?
> People who didn't mind that he is a racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic, bigoted philandering malignant narcissist grifter made him president.

It's not that they "didn't mind", but many probably were happy that he was those things:

> If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.

> If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.

> If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.

> It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.

[…]

* Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition

throw0101d··on hdiutil is deprecated in macOS 27 Golden Gate
> Because I use it and pay them money for that?

This is like saying to a cop that's pulled you over for speeding "I pay for your salary".

Yes, you do. But so do a bunch of other people do as well. And someone has to decide how to balance the needs of the many, which is where management / governance comes it: and said management has decided that the resources will be spent, or not spent, on certain things.

throw0101d··on Xorg-server 26.1.0 rc1
> FSF approved Yes (Version 2.0, not versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2)[2][3]

> OSI approved Yes

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Public_Source_License

throw0101d··on Xorg-server 26.1.0 rc1
> An XQuartz installation consists of many individual pieces of software which have various licenses. The X.Org software components’ licenses are discussed on the X.Org Foundation Licenses page.[1] The quartz-wm[2] window manager included with the XQuartz distribution uses the Apple Public Source License Version 2.[3]

* https://www.xquartz.org/index.html

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