hnbad

51 ms·

511.
by hnbad 2y ago
I can only speak for myself and I'm not in the US but having been raised on a diet of "end of history" era Hollywood stories about the world coming together to defeat a common threat, I expected something closer to a war econ
512.
by hnbad 2y ago
The thing is, we DID see a high mortality rate. We DID have incinerators running up queues in Italy and mass graves being dug in New York. Those things happened. Millions of people died from COVID, either directly or (more likely) from oppo
513.
by hnbad 2y ago
It's worth keeping in mind the risk-reward payoff though. It's an ecosystem, exactly. They're not going to murder your family to unlock your phone like in some kind of Hollywood action blockbuster. The catfishing/blackma
514.
by hnbad 2y ago
A dead account replied to this in good faith so let me address this as I can't comment directly: > [Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station] uses sewage; people are very regular at producing waste water. Not really, no. Germany for ex
515.
by hnbad 2y ago
No, you do what Iran (a potential nuclear power) did when Israel (a known nuclear power) committed an explicit act of war by bombing its consulate and killing some of its top brass: you respond with an appropriately measured but ultimately
516.
by hnbad 2y ago
You can't convince me there isn't some kind of funnel from Disney Imagineering into the US military if this is the kind of tech they're working on. Most R&D doesn't happen in the public spotlight the way Boston Dynam
517.
by hnbad 2y ago
I'm not sure if I was taught this specifically in driver's ed but yes, I also learned that if all else fails the best approach is to hit the guard rail at a tight angle and keep steering into it until the car stops. It will total
518.
by hnbad 2y ago
No, I'm saying unless those animals pick up guns and fight for their rights, they'll have to rely on how icky society at large feels about mistreating them and how willing we are to cause a ruckus about that to outweigh the influe
519.
by hnbad 2y ago
FWIW if you're going to argue for non-renewable energy as a solution for filling in when renewable energy sources dip, nuclear energy doesn't help with any of that. It's important to understand the way different kinds of powe
520.
by hnbad 2y ago
Didn't France also have to literally shut down a nuclear plant because of the drought last year or so? As climate change escalates, having a power plant you need to shut down when the river runs dry and then need to spend days booting
521.
by hnbad 2y ago
Indeed, the problem right now is not production. We have overproduction in parts of Europe. The problem is storage and distribution. We need to improve the grids and invest in storage technologies to better time-shift renewable energy inste
522.
by hnbad 2y ago
> Also, no one would care if it's green or not in case of a full-scale war. If you're a nuclear country in a full-scale war with Russia or China, you are dead. Your family is dead. Your friends are dead. Everyone you know or lo
523.
by hnbad 2y ago
If you want to put a positive spin on it, the brain is really good at error correction. If not, the brain is really bad at paying attention to details it considers unimportant.
524.
by hnbad 2y ago
This reminds me of how the sad state of fiber broadband in Germany is ultimately the result of 1990s chancellor Helmut Kohl (the one who saw over the reunification, consequently selling off the East German public property to private investo
525.
by hnbad 2y ago
IIRC there have been studies and they showed differences in the latter depending on the specific threat. But "birds" is a large group and studying "bird songs" is not any more helpful than studying "mammal noises&qu
526.
by hnbad 2y ago
Fun fact: That is why linguists are more interested in spoken language than written language. Written languages are ultimately "amateur" attempts to codify spoken (natural) languages. Spoken language consists of utterances not let
527.
by hnbad 2y ago
They probably mean sapient. We consider most animals sentient but only humans sapient. That said, rights don't happen through scientific discovery but through reform or revolution. There are strong economic incentives to keep animal ri
528.
by hnbad 2y ago
It's always surprising to me when people seem to be unaware that things like human rights or international laws only exist as long as every authority (i.e. everyone with the power to enforce it with violence if necessary) agrees with t
529.
by hnbad 2y ago
> As you read the words in this article, your eyes are rapidly flicking between different letters, as your visual system is making educated guesses about what each of the words says. This means that lteters can appaer out of oredr, but y
530.
by hnbad 2y ago
I don't have to engage with every single person on HN to any extent just because I post on HN. I can also decide to engage with a post without having to commit to engaging with everything else that posters wants to add. I think it prov
531.
by hnbad 2y ago
> The most comparable recent US engagement was destroying ISIS in Mosul. My point wasn't that the US is better. My point was that there were widespread protests opposing the US's "collateral damage" in their wars afte
532.
by hnbad 2y ago
I remember when during the 2020 civil rights protests in the US people were talking about the Geneva convention and calling what the police did "in violation" of it, especially wrt chemical warfare, only to be surprised to find ou
533.
by hnbad 2y ago
I'm not sure whether there have been any pro-Palestine or even simply "anti-war" protests that were properly registered, not disrupted and not dissolved by the police but I guess it depends on your definition of "legally
534.
by hnbad 2y ago
Far-right conservatives in Germany claim to be "not antisemtic" by using dogwhistles (similar to the US, e.g. "elites" - the Nazis literally used "international bankers"). However they generally don't oppo
535.
by hnbad 2y ago
It's complicated. Germany has pretty strict laws against "incitement of hatred". Additionally it's illegal to deface, damage or destroy a foreign flag. Also demonstrations and protests need to be registered in advance wi
536.
by hnbad 2y ago
FWIW most Western militaries have specific ratios that are deemed acceptable for neutralizing a target (i.e. killing a baddie). These ratios are usually ranked based on the target's importance with a regular soldier being very low and
537.
by hnbad 2y ago
> I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society". Sure, if you believe your own (or more accurately: most liberal democracies') propaganda
538.
by hnbad 2y ago
But then OP is correct: mecha/mech refers to humanoid bipeds. The Japanese word is not mecha but メカ (meka in romaji). EDIT: I'm being pedantic. When used in English, "mecha" or "mech" is an English word and the
539.
by hnbad 2y ago
Sure but that message would be no worse if sent by email instead of contact form. And he does address the "risk" of publishing an email address. I can second that I've seen more spam from WordPress forms than published email
540.
by hnbad 2y ago
I thought Microsoft's top priority was putting weird ads and pushy tie-ins into their good products to sell people on their mediocre products like Bing and MSN?

More ›