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My dad the other month, in need of a computer with webcam and ideally portable, bought some $400-500 HP 17" laptop. He was so proud of it, proud of buying a piece of hardware without asking me, and rather than tell him the truth, I nodded and said "yeah this is neat".

The monitor is awful. Like, the horrible way it changes color and brightness depending on exact viewing angle is sickening; I am shocked California hasn't declared it illegal. It feels cheap, keyboard is cheap, who knows what the battery life is.

If the Apple Neo were available then, and he had asked what to buy, I would have instantly told him to get one.


Republicans in Harris County sold voters on the Beltway 8 toll road in the 80s based on the idea that when the bonds were paid off the tolls would go away.

Clever hack: they never stopped issuing bonds.

At least they've made it really easy for them to take your money. You don't need a toll tag, they'll scan your license plate, mail you, and charge you extra for mailing you. No coins needed.


One could say "Optimize for efficiency first, then performance".

Name-calling and specific accusations that cause damage are so different. This is really a blight on Germany's system, if this is considered slander.

Everything in paragraph 3 onward is sensible.

I assume it's just like asking for help refactoring, just targeting specific kinds of errors.

I ran a small python script that I made some years ago through an LLM recently and it pointed out several areas where the code would likely throw an error if certain inputs were received. Not security, but flaws nonetheless.


In my social circle of liberal people, the reason is despondence.

Climate change has been known for decades now, and despite the alarms and concerns, the current administration is cheerfully, maliciously removing all initiatives in the US to combat it. Attempting to destroy the solar industry and wind power. Rolling back the most common sense environmental controls for public health.

Meanwhile our country has had its place in the world destroyed irrevocably (for at least a generation) and is turning further and further away from a country that cares for its citizens and its freedoms.

People are losing hope, not interest, because climate change and fascism are are more alarming than ever and our government is complicit.

Long standing problems are not being solved.


Yes, credibility is one component of evaluating conclusions from evidence.

[flagged]


Their credibility and experience makes it more likely that they will have followed scientific procedures correctly, that their measuring techniques will not have obvious flaws and their findings reflect the evidence.

This is not an appeal to authority: the paper will be examined thoroughly by peer reviewers and likely by academics across the world, in part because of their credibility. That will take time. Meanwhile it should be taken seriously.


Isn't this the moral hazard of war as it becomes more of a distance sport? That powerful governments can order the razing of cities and assassinate leaders with ease?

We need to do it because our enemies are doing it, in any case.


I do not think that anyone but the US and Israel have assassinated leaders in the last 30 years. I also question their autonomous drone advancement. Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela and they do not have the means to help Iran.

Russia and other states have demonstrably conducted targeted killings.


>"Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela"

Of course they have the means. Nothing technical prohibits them from blowing couple of carriers. But the price they would have to pay is way too high.


Did you mean Venezuela or Iran?

Because there are actual technical impediments why neither China nor the Russians could have blown a US carrier in the Caribbean.


>"actual technical impediments"

I do not believe so. Not unsurmountable at least. The consequences are however far from pleasant for each side


I do believe there are major technical impediments; other than a modern attack sub reaching that far undetected I can't think of how they would do it. The US is the only nation that can effectively project power so far away from its borders, almost anywhere in the world.

Furthermore, you mentioned this in response to "helping Venezuela", but even damaging a carrier (something technically very, very difficult for Russia or China) would not have helped Venezuela one bit.

It'd be more technically feasible for them to help Iran than Venezuela, and even that is not particularly feasible now, other than very indirectly.


>"would not have helped Venezuela one bit"

I think it would, meaning that right from that exact minute the US and Russia will be very busy and Venezuela left to it's own devices. Does not mean Venezuela would feel any better of course.


This is entering fantasy land.

There's no effective way of Russia to militarily help Venezuela and strike any US carrier. Same with China. You haven't proposed any because there is no feasible way.

Even if they could, such action would have been followed by the US knocking Venezuela out and taking them out of the equation. A neighboring ally of an actively engaged hostile power wouldn't be "left to its own devices".


We need to [develop military technology] because our enemies do it. I don't mean we have to commit war crimes because others do it.

It came later than I anticipated, but it did come after all. There is a reason companies like 9mother are working like crazy on various way to mitigate those risks.

As a proton user I know I am not completely anonymous. I pay them for their bundle of services because I get VPN, encrypted password storage and email that isn't scanned for ads and other purposes.

Privacy and anonymity are a gradient. If I needed real opsec from government threats I wouldn't tie a credit card to a service.


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