prottog

43 ms·

511.
by prottog 4y ago
Many will point out that GDP isn't everything, and they're right, but you are asking the right questions. Consider that human development has always been about more energy expended per capita, and using that energy to shape our en
512.
by prottog 4y ago
Was it Lechmere? That may be because for the longest time (until the recent Green Line Extension project), Lechmere was the terminus for the Green Line, and so it became a part of a lot of people's commutes.
513.
by prottog 4y ago
> Still.. amazing cars. Are they really that nice? I've been in a few but never owned one. I hear a lot about fit and finish issues unbefitting a car of that price range. What does a Model S get you that an S-class doesn't, or
514.
by prottog 4y ago
Yes, this is it. Things like this are almost never due to some inside conspiracy, but rather result from systemic incentives applied to different actors over time. Absent laws that forbid security bureaus from being too cautious, they will
515.
by prottog 4y ago
As others pointed out, I nitpicked the one place in Scandinavia that would actually get cold, to make the comparison fair. Places further north than Rovaniemi (my example) that are closer to the ocean, like Tromsø, have milder winters due t
516.
by prottog 4y ago
Most of the societies you mentioned formed in places with four seasons and winters that you couldn't grow anything in, so you're actually furthering my point. The theory being, of course, that such climates force people to need to
517.
by prottog 4y ago
I'm curious to know more. Sure, they're not well-tested theories and never will be, given their nature, but broadly it seems to track. The powerful forces of climate and geography on a people's culture and the effect of that
518.
by prottog 4y ago
> Also they have winter to deal with. Europe doesn't really have winter compared to North America, unless you're making a quip about their energy crisis ;-). Compare someplace continental and ridiculously far north like Rovanie
519.
by prottog 4y ago
I think it's not that people in Europe prefer sturdier stuff, I think it's that all the wood has already been cut down, so timber construction is not priced cheaply enough to offset its disadvantages vs. masonry. > Something th
520.
by prottog 4y ago
> In a world where everything changes rapidly and I might need money now, I'm going to demand a lot of interest before I'll lend you my cash. Because I'm incurring a lot of opportunity cost by parting with it. My logic is
521.
by prottog 4y ago
That's amazing. I get in-air refueling, but the fact that the two pilots managed to live in this tiny space, performing tasks that I'm sure very quickly became repetitive and monotonous, listening to the engine, peeing in a bottle
522.
by prottog 4y ago
> why have long term interests declined over the past 500 years, accelerating in the past 50-100 years The cost of money (that is, interest) is based on two things: the time value of money, which is the concept that an amount of money is
523.
by prottog 4y ago
> Billy Mitchell of Fyre Festival You mean Billy McFarland. Billy Mitchell appears entirely innocent of this ;-)
524.
by prottog 4y ago
> I have thirty new calves on the ground right now. I'm curious, how did you get into that? Are you a software person who became (forgive the term) a gentleman rancher? Was it a family business? Or do you have no professional connec
525.
by prottog 4y ago
> surprised that there have been no deaths with that policy The lunacy of today's synthetic sex identity movement aside, what did you imagine, that the Texas state government would take these kids out back and shoot them?
526.
by prottog 4y ago
> (They stopped at the onset of the pandemic and AFAIK never resumed.) From what I can tell, the pandemic gave many government functions and bureaus carte-blanche to stop working while collecting the same paychecks.
527.
by prottog 4y ago
> could never imagine a time where I would spend more than 50k on a car Like most things the value is in the eye of the beholder, but there are definitely circumstances where a $50k car is in fact more than $30k nicer than a $20k car, le
528.
by prottog 4y ago
> (or if you're feeling really bold, a 501c3) The profit incentive is a powerful one that often leads to solving real problems. Some of the worst-run, most ineffective organizations in the world are nonprofits, so you'd have to
529.
by prottog 4y ago
I'm not against using O&G tax revenue for early education and the like, but I struggle to see why this needs to be in the constitution of the state. A law would have sufficed. Basic legal documents like constitutions should be conf
530.
by prottog 4y ago
Scale matters for things like this. When it comes to things that potentially expose people to criminal liability or other government penalties, automating anything is a gateway to abuse, present or future.
531.
by prottog 4y ago
> forcing people to steal to survive I really don't think these people are choosing between stealing and starving.
532.
by prottog 4y ago
It's the software engineering equivalent of the crypto nerd with the super-strong encryption, beat by a five-dollar wrench attack[0]. ;-) Sometimes the best (for some definition of best) solution to a problem is to side-step it entirel
533.
by prottog 4y ago
> Housing speculators and NIMBYs are going to kill capitalism. No arguments with the sentiment, but keep in mind that South Korea is roughly the size of Indiana (the 12th-smallest state) and over two-thirds of what land they have is moun
534.
by prottog 4y ago
It may well be for the purposes of this discussion. The ACLU of the past five years or so is such a radical departure from its tradition of guarding civil liberties; you now have directors of the ACLU publicly stating a desire to suppress p
535.
by prottog 4y ago
> let’s not pretend like everyone wouldn’t have hated them The whole point of the nominal independence of the Fed from the political process is that they would be able to take unpopular decisions that may hurt in the short term but will
536.
by prottog 4y ago
Yeah, why did they have to use Lego cranes in a render?
537.
by prottog 4y ago
> you’ve got a lot of correlated risk sitting on one side of a nasty liability Not only was WeWork's customer base dependent on VC money, so was WeWork itself! So it's really VC money going around in circles until the music sto
538.
by prottog 4y ago
A hundred and twenty people die every minute in the US. How far will you go to ensure that doesn't happen? How many civil liberties will you suspend, and how many cherished norms of life will you cast aside in your goal?
539.
by prottog 4y ago
If more 18-year-olds were willing to do that, we would be in a better place.
540.
by prottog 4y ago
> You are required to maximize stockholder value This is legal fiction that has no bearing in the kinds of subjects that it often gets brought up in. Simply put, those responsible for a company (e.g. officers of a corporation) have a fid

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