robonerd

40 ms·

421.
by robonerd 4y ago
When America accuses some nominally left-wing tyrant of crimes against humanity, Chomsky sees fit to proclaim their innocence for no better reason than because it's the opposite of what America is saying. He's even gone as far
422.
by robonerd 4y ago
Indeed. In free and democratic societies, the electorate are the root of these problems.
423.
by robonerd 4y ago
It won't happen. There's a lot of demand for media personalities, particularly from lonely people who like to form parasocial relationships with these celebrities. Pithily put: cable news personalities are to lonely boomers what
424.
by robonerd 4y ago
But if they're moving away from commentary (progressive or otherwise), how are they going to fill their schedule with "hard news" while also not over-hyping? Lack of real news is the whole reason they started over-hyping an
425.
by robonerd 4y ago
Good if true, but I'll believe it when I see it. As long as they're doing the 24/7 cable news channel format, they'll inevitably be drawn back into hype and sensationalism to keep that schedule filled. Television news p
426.
by robonerd 4y ago
> Yeah, if the person is intellectually disabled and that disability causes them to act in a certain way then I don't really consider them a scumbag either. That's easy to claim online talking about abstract scenarios, but if
427.
by robonerd 4y ago
I didn't say anything about metrics leading police away from the holistic goals of police. I said police are already disconnected from those goals, and introducing them to the art of justifying anything you want with data isn't g
428.
by robonerd 4y ago
> While there is definitely room for prosecutors to be more aggressive on police misconduct That's severely underselling it. Unless somebody dies, a prosecutor is more likely to give up before they even try. Even when somebody d
429.
by robonerd 4y ago
And maybe the wife beater is fucked in the head because he got brain damage as a kid from his dad beating him. I don't really care though, I don't have a problem classifying him as a scumbag. Cycles of abuse can be broken, and
430.
by robonerd 4y ago
If the DA really knows who the bad cops are, the DA should prosecute them. DAs blaming cops are hoping that the public don't realize the DAs themselves are dropping the ball and letting cops get away with it.
431.
by robonerd 4y ago
Yeah, but giving them metrics won't fix that. Even forcing them to cite the metrics in their decisions won't force a culture change. And even if you could somehow convince/force them to earnestly intend to be data-driven,
432.
by robonerd 4y ago
I disagree, because the statute is about protecting fish and wildlife; protecting fish inherently implies protecting the environment of fish; water. There is obvious practical sense in defining fish to include any sort of animal that lives
433.
by robonerd 4y ago
More airships were lost to poor weather than thermite paint or whatever other specific Hindenburg problem you're thinking of. Planes have numerous inherent advantages in this regard: They're faster, which makes weather forecasti
434.
by robonerd 4y ago
> I don't understand why this broken model of crowdsourcing ratings is being applied over and over again to different aspects of society. It's as if the managers and MBAs of the world have given up even trying to manage people
435.
by robonerd 4y ago
It seems like treating good people well is the axiomatic virtue, while treating bad people well is a virtue derived from the first. The determination of who's bad or good is fraught with error and subjectivity; therefore to protect goo
436.
by robonerd 4y ago
Even small fines come with a large serving of shame, at least for a lot of people. Receiving an inconsequentially small fine can be the kick some people need to sort themselves out, if they perceive the social denunciation implicit in the
437.
by robonerd 4y ago
Good observation. This sort of rating system would incentivize cops to go out of their way to have benign but unnecessary interactions with people. Maybe this wouldn't be all bad; optimistically such interactions might help bridge
438.
by robonerd 4y ago
In principle, yes. In practice, bosses get lazy and defer to the easiest metrics.
439.
by robonerd 4y ago
> Who is a scumbag? There are marginal cases for sure, but let's not pretend that true scumbags don't exist just because the demarcation line is subjective; that's like pretending there's no such thing as a ripe ban
440.
by robonerd 4y ago
Heh, I go out of my way to ride on ferries. If you have time to spare, the Alaska Marine Highway (a ferry) is a very pleasant trip. But a Vegas-like experience on a cruise ship sounds like hell to me. For each their own I guess.
441.
by robonerd 4y ago
Certainly, and fish love to eat mosquito larva. If being aquatic is a vital part of an animals lifecycle, then it makes sense to consider those animals aquatic in the context of regulating water matters.
442.
by robonerd 4y ago
Incidentally the deadliest airship crash of all time was a helium airship, the USS Akron. Nevertheless, hydrogen does pose a real risk to the passengers in the event of an accident. In other helium airship crashes (for instance the USS She
443.
by robonerd 4y ago
> plenty of toads aren't aquatic in any ordinary sense of the term. I don't think that's true. Maybe there's an odd exception out there somewhere, but toads start life as aquatic tadpoles.
444.
by robonerd 4y ago
All leads back to the sea eventually.
445.
by robonerd 4y ago
Diogenes de-bones a chicken, rendering it an invertebrate.
446.
by robonerd 4y ago
(It's a nice podcast, but discussing the name:) The phylogenetic nomenclature is basically textbook cope; coping with the fact that the ancient word of fish doesn't align well with what biologists have learned. If you want to cre
447.
by robonerd 4y ago
The part of this document that you're quoting is talking about the limitations of land/sea based boost-phase interceptors. Scroll down to the Space-Based Interceptors section. I don't think there's much substance h
448.
by robonerd 4y ago
"Completely failed" as in nobody could possibly launch a constellation that large in the 80s and 90s, yes. The economics of massive constellations have changed, one already has thousands of satellites in orbit. Look up SDA and th
449.
by robonerd 4y ago
Disclosure (1993), otherwise not much of a sci-fi movie, had a nice VR scene too: https://youtu.be/qk3PK3W_wvo?t=16
450.
by robonerd 4y ago
> Boost-phase interceptors would be big expensive weapons systems Not very big actually, not if the interceptors are placed in LEO. They're a hell of a lot smaller and cheaper than the missiles they're meant to intercept. T

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