"Verbing": For some reason, to me the use of "impact" as a verb has always been fingernails on a chalkboard. But it's hard to see the distinction between that and using "access" as a verb (as in the linked C & H strip), which seems unremarkable.
> "And if you really care about your health you should do them every 3 months to catch problems early!"
When I moved to Houston just after law school, I found a doctor and made an appointment to get a routine physical exam; I hadn't had one since getting out of the Navy three years earlier.
Doctor: So what brings you here?
Me: A triennial physical exam.
Doctor (incredulously): You get a physical exam three times a year?
FTA: "By doing so, Trump is making good on a promise he made almost 10 years ago to go back to the steam system after hearing a sailor praise it while visiting a ship during his first term."
FTA: "By doing so, Trump is making good on a promise he made almost 10 years ago to go back to the steam system after hearing a sailor praise it while visiting a ship during his first term.
"But since Trump said in an interview with Time in 2017 that he told the Navy to go back to “goddamn steam,” top Navy and industry leaders have resisted the move because of the enormous expense to tear out such a complex system that was integral to the design of the Ford class."
> Having done both [software and law], lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words
Having also done both: In legal drafting work, there's less systematic pre-release testing before the equivalent of a "program" is loosed upon the world. There's not much in the way of counterparts to software unit testing and regression testing, in part because legal-drafting clients can be vociferous in demanding that their lawyers keep costs down.
Lawyers who like to tinker with words can fuck things up more often and at greater scale — e.g., by inflicting compulsory burdens and costs on others — than can most programmers. That includes, e.g., contract drafters and litigation counsel, plus lobbyists trying to influence draft legislation and regulations.
I'm not-infrequently dismayed by the quality of the contracts I review for clients because of the "tinkering with words" by the lawyers on the other side of the deal. Back when I did IP litigation, I was sometimes likewise dismayed by the bullshit arguments that some lawyers felt free to make in their court papers because what the hell, the worst that can happen is almost never more than the judge just saying "no." And as mostly a law professor these days, I review court opinions all the time and am regularly amazed how judges (and their law clerks, such as Rayiner used to be) can be so patient in responding to such arguments.
> Having also done both: In legal drafting work, there's less systematic pre-release testing before the equivalent of a "program" is loosed upon the world. There's not much in the way of counterparts to software unit testing and regression testing, in part because legal-drafting clients can be vociferous in demanding that their lawyers keep costs down.
Yeah, at least in litigation you get relatively immediate feedback in the form of a decision. Seems anxiety inducing to me to draft these contracts and have no feedback loop unless something blows up years later.
FTA: "AI may be lowering the cost of operating outside a traditional firm by allowing one worker to perform tasks that once required a team, support staff, or firm-based infrastructure."
And from a WaPo summary: "Contrary to the future envisioned by doomers, AI will drive more independence in the labor market by reducing the costs to owning your own business." https://wapo.st/3ToNK0o (gift link)
> I think sooner or later, Iran will succeed in sinking a big US ship
Sinking or even just seriously damaging a U.S. aircraft carrier — approx. 5K people in crew + airwing, billions of dollars in ship and aircraft — might trigger a Pearl-Harbor or 9/11 fury among the American public. No U.S. president could get away with even a "proportionate" response, let alone doing nothing.
Think of the Tonkin Gulf incident in 1965, which led to the U.S.'s widened involvement in Vietnam on the basis of grossly-distorted reports about alleged attacks — which never happened — on U.S. destroyers (which are comparatively small ships). [0] If Iran were to actually sink a U.S. aircraft carrier, then Trump-Hegseth-Miller might well nuke Tehran in response.
We sure as hell don't need anything like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 by a terrorist. It triggered a cascade of some of the stupidest and costliest government decisions in history. Belgrade, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, London, they all effed it up almost beyond belief. WWI cost millions of lives and untold billions in resources that could have been put to far better use. Iran sinking a U.S. carrier could be a similar trigger.
>It triggered a cascade of some of the stupidest and costliest government decisions in history.
Eh. WWI wasn't an accident, a series of unfortunate incidents, or something that just got out of hand.
Countries and people WANTED the war, war was still thought about as a general benefit to the country, almost sporting. Everybody was feeling powerful with the new capabilities industrialization gave them and they wanted to use that to gain influence. (of course not literally everybody, but this was a prevailing force)
> Countries and people WANTED the war, war was still thought about as a general benefit to the country
That was true among some of the players in various governments — Kaiser Wilhelm being a prime example. Can you cite any (reputable) historians who think that was a general attitude?
It is well documented in France as well. It was seen as a revenge for 1870. There was quite a bit of enthusiasm. At least initially, before the killing started in earnest and people got stuck in the trenches.
Stefan Zweig famously wrote a lot about it in his memoir, and he describes being in Austria and the general excitement in the lead up to and beginning of the war.
The implication here I'm disagreeing with is that the war was the unintended consequence of mistakes. Instead of mistakes leading the continent down a dark path it was intentional, just waiting for an excuse to start fighting.
I have to differ. I don’t think anyone on either side even imagined, let alone intended, that the Western Front would get bogged down in four years of trench warfare or (on the Allied side) that Russia would fight so suboptimally. There was a lot of catastrophically-naive optimism at work.
If you were born in 1900 you probably are at the tail end of the Lost Generation — the Greatest Generation is considered to be those born between 1901 and 1927.
Lost Generation describes those who experienced WW1. Given that he turned 18 in 1918 it's certainly possible he enlisted or was drafted. The article implies he didn't join WW1. It's that experience rather than his exact birthday that would categorize him into Lost vs Greatest IMO.
Wild to think there were people who as adults lived through all of the railroad buildout, WWI, the 20s, the depression, and then WWII. Complaining about AI buildouts causing electronics prices to regress by a decade or so begins to seem rather trite in comparison.
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