jltsiren

11 ms·

241.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
> This is not the norm for a definition of a combatant, and if we adopt the norm Iran has created, then we have to accept that in reality the US and EU have been at war with Russia, Iran, and North Korea since 2022 as the US and EU provi
242.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
Neutrality in a war is a complex matter. The basic principle is that a neutral country must make a serious attempt to defend their borders from both parties. To convince both parties that nobody is using the territory of the neutral country
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
If anything, fitness makes you more susceptible to altitude sickness. It's not an inherent effect, but rather your habits driving you to do things you shouldn't. You are supposed to take things lazy and slow when acclimatizing to
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
In my experience, it's only the cheap insurance policies bundled with credit cards and various memberships that consider high-altitude hiking a high-risk activity. Any travel insurance you buy as individual should cover it. If there is
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
The figure you linked to is particularly unintuitive. It shows income per household, divided by square root of household size. There are plenty of complex and unpredictable interactions with heuristics like that. For example, if housing bec
246.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
Before the war, the regime was facing the threat of imminent collapse. But if the war ends without regime change, they may use it as an excuse to eliminate organizers and other key opposition figures. If they have not already done so. If no
247.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
$147 was ~€95 in July 2008, which corresponds to ~€140 today. Which would be ~$160. And if you choose a third currency, you will get a third price. Long-term measurements of value are kind of weird, as your unit of measurement can gain and
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
Trees can cause a lot of trouble if you don't give them enough space to grow. "Enough space" depends on the kind of the tree, but it's typically similar to a parking space. You can mandate trees, but then you'll get
249.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
Sanctions against Russian oil might ultimately not matter that much. Ukraine has already demonstrated that it can hit Baltic and Black Sea ports, and Arctic ports might also be within range. That would leave only Pacific ports and Asian pip
250.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
$3500 would have been 3–4 months' discretionary spending as a PhD student in Finland 15 years ago. A sum you might choose to spend once a year on something you find genuinely interesting. Some people succumb to lifestyle creep or choos
251.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
Local AI is probably the most common application these days. Apple recently added support for InfiniBand over Thunderbolt. And now almost all decent Mac Studio configurations have sold out. Those two may be connected.
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
High-end Macs have moved to PCIe 5.0 speeds in their internal drives. Thunderbolt 5 is not fast enough to get the same performance from external ones. Thunderbolt is also too slow for higher-end networks. A single port is already insufficie
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
Conference papers should be abolished, because they require international travel, which is getting more difficult every year. 10–20 years ago, when travel was cheap and easy, it was mostly just people from developing countries who could oft
254.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
The policy is what you would expect from a journal that is effectively run by volunteers. While the publisher has paid employees, the editorial board in charge of the journal itself seems to consist of volunteers. When you have a volunteer
255.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
The value of the oil / natural gas production in the Gulf states is not infinite. Nobody except the US has the force projection capacity to fight a major war against Iran. If they are not interested in fighting that war, the rest of th
256.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
The problem with definitions is that they are all wrong when you try to apply them outside mathematical models. Descriptive terms are more useful than normative ones when you are dealing with the real world. Their meaning naturally evolves
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
I think that's a category error. Current AI is not better or worse than us but fundamentally different. Its main strength and weakness is that it knows too much about everything. It usually knows more than the user about the topic at h
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
The value is the ability to do science as a career without being independently wealthy. Politicians, administrators, donors, and taxpayers don't want scientists deciding on their own how to spend the money. They want control over what
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
Usually, when you see "ch" in a Latin word, it represents a "χ" in the original Greek word. Both TeX and arXiv use "X" to represent it instead. TeX because Knuth chose to be fancy, and arXiv because "archi
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
The traditional definition of high income starts at 2x the median. Looking the US as a whole, anything above $125k should be considered high income. But it doesn't feel like that, because median wages are unusually low in the US relati
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
It's a classic story of someone having to pick a name quickly, which then gets established long before anyone who cares about branding is aware of its existence. The original service didn't even have a name, only a description, an
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
The kind of a person who thinks they would be substantially happier as a billionaire would probably be unhappy as a billionaire. You get used to what you have, but there is always more wealth / status / power / influence to b
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
Laws apply to whatever they say they apply to. Limiting their scope to actions in the country, or at least giving precedence to similar foreign laws, is at least as much about the practicalities of enforcement as a matter of principle. For
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
People often vote to support new housing, as long as the entire system works reasonably well. My solution was to widen the tax base to make the system work better. The incentives around property taxes do not support significant new construc
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
The underlying assumption is that laws will be changed when necessary. If it's not possible to do that, most issues probably can't be fixed. More fundamentally, this is related to the principle of subsidiarity that is occasionally
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
The real issue seems to be the top-heavy tax system that forces local governments to rely on property taxes. A local income tax would make them more capable of building and maintaining infrastructure, but that would require lowering taxes a
267.
by jltsiren 7mo ago
It was always about independence, not impartiality. Instead of having a big boss on the top issuing correct opinions, reputable news outlets gave their reporters a lot of freedom in their work. Each reporter had their own biases, and the va
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
Even when you are working with large numbers, most numbers are usually small. Most of the code is probably not dealing with the large things, and a large thing may consist of a large number of instances that are individually small. I'v
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
The kind of pro-Iran state that has hosted the biggest US military base in the Middle East for decades. International politics are messy, as there are too many actors with their own agendas. You try to avoid taking sides and to stay out of
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by jltsiren 7mo ago
Daily reminder to always check data definitions before interpreting statistics. According to the OECD data, US 2023 healthcare spending was 28% by the government, 55% by private health insurance, 11% out of pocket, and 5% from other sources

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