Messages

51

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: August 21, 2022, 06:35:56 AM »

Trump seems really upset that he is backing Dr Oz in PA.  Mitch is correct that when the Reps take a beating in the Senate this fall it will be due to a lack of good candidates running.

Trump supporters can maybe win the primary but they will lose in the general. Or at least in most states.

I really, truly, hope you are correct. I just have this horrible feeling that come results day most of us here are going to be standing back going "how did that happen?" (and no, I don't believe it will have been successfully rigged by the GOP though they will of course try).

52

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: August 19, 2022, 05:59:09 AM »

Just for the record I really appreciate William posting here - without him I would be unable to believe that the reported positions of Trump supporters were real.  I don't go near that section of the media, but he brings home just how unshakeable some of that faith is.

53

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: August 14, 2022, 02:56:27 PM »

apparently Trump had a standing order that any files removed from the Oval Office and taken there were to be deemed declassified

If that's true, that's appallingly unprofessional. Which means it's probably true.

If you read the linked BBC post you'll find that it was in a statement from Trumps office though that doesn't make it true I guess...

54

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: August 14, 2022, 10:05:53 AM »

I know this will not convince Wm since he is already sure that there were no classified documents at MAL.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-lawyer-signed-statement-months-002954844.html

Well according to the BBC reporting on the raid https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62527628 they found files marked top-secret, but apparently Trump had a standing order that any files removed from the Oval Office and taken there were to be deemed declassified, so by definition any files found must be declassified (no matter how marked). I wonder if someone in the US can submit an FOI request for their contents - after all if they are declassified that should just work - right?

55

General Comments / Re: What are some things that Biden gets right?

« on: August 05, 2022, 04:27:47 AM »

The law of God, as seen in the Bible, is clear about what is moral and immoral. And since even people who have never encountered the law know generally what is moral and immoral

So you are happy with the entirety of Leviticus as a description of good & bad?

Its a position certainly.

56

General Comments / Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?

« on: August 03, 2022, 02:06:31 PM »

Having read the ballot question I'd certainly believe that it was designed to confuse and, to me at least, appears to be in favour of "yes". There are far too many words there. It could, and should, and been cut down to "Repeal the Kanas Constitutional amendment that protects abortion? yes/no".

On the other hand it seem unlikely anyone was actually confused due to the publicity surrounding the vote.

57

General Comments / Re: Climate alarmists are wrong.

« on: August 02, 2022, 01:11:45 PM »

I saw William's description of the Arthur B. Robinson Center -- which isn't too far from my in-laws' place -- and choked. Please Google Arthur Robinson before continuing.

If you Google "Arthur Robinson" you get a well respected cartographer who has an eponymous map projection. "Arthur B. Robinson" gets you a climate change denier.

58

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: July 26, 2022, 06:40:28 AM »

Actually you confuse me, too. Heliocentrism is usually compared against geocentrism - not a flat earth. All in all, it was the Church that sought out the science. It was the church that decreed the earth revolves around the sun, not placing the Earth at the center.

Could you give me sources and dates on that?

Wikipedias article on Copernicus states:

In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds of ensuring that Copernicanism, which it described as a "false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture," would not "creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth."

with a note that this prohibition was finally removed in 1835.

59

General Comments / Re: Addiction rehab

« on: July 24, 2022, 06:01:09 AM »

I'm pretty sure the only way you can do that is by redefining the terms such that it cannot exist.

Otherwise humans crave pleasure, or at least a reprieve from misery and that sensation is addictive.

60

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: July 22, 2022, 06:44:19 AM »

Answer us, who has that kind of money to spread around, and who has the facility to print up hundreds of thousands of bogus ballots, get then to all the drop off points, and fill them out in the few hours after the numbers needed was ascertained?

Donald Trump?

61

General Comments / Re: Musk and Twitter

« on: July 19, 2022, 11:26:59 AM »

Right, except that it wasn't exactly a strict business investment, more like a moral investment.

Given that his reasons for pulling out are pure business ones it doesn't seem like his morals had a lot of fibre. You can't reasonably argue that he didn't know that Twitter had bots, he's complained about it often enough.

62

General Comments / Re: Musk and Twitter

« on: July 19, 2022, 05:53:36 AM »

This is why rational investors perform due diligence. By waiving it, Musk was basically saying "I trust the numbers you've given me."

Now he's trying to run an audit to prove it was a stolen acquisition. But he has no proof that the bot count isn't exactly what they said it was.

I'm not really sure where I stand on this, if anywhere (I don't care as much as it may seem). But just to follow your reasoning, let's say Musk had in fact tried to do this due diligence before making a hard offer - how do you think that plays out? My thinking is Twitter gives Musk the same data it was giving everyone, and if he asks for more info or direct personal access to investigate the accounts himself, they refuse just as they would to anyone else. How else would he gain insider access to see for himself unless he had already put his foot in the door as a buyer? To be fair they did offer him a board seat first, so potentially he could have accepted it, and from within the board tried to get the board to agree to produce better data. But that process would likely be long, and even then he could potentially be overruled.

My laymans (and possibly flawed) understanding is that normally you write an offer letter that goes something along the line of "we offer X billion $ for the company subject to due diligence not showing anything unexpected", Musk wrote one that went "I offer Y billion $ for the company and I want it so much/quickly that I'll skip due diligence". The due diligence process does entitle you to poke through the books at a deeper level that the public normally gets to see and would have got him to the current point where he could pull out without having made any unfortunate commitments.

63

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: June 23, 2022, 05:38:02 AM »

There are only two things to think about, here. One, is Trump's true popularity amongst voters, and the swelling Black and Latino improvement.

I'm going with the vote, as recorded, being his true popularity - so a bit less than half the population of the US liked him then.

The second is that Biden's vote came from hatred of Trump.

That is a point that I think I have to give you

Hatred which was based on Democrat lies.

That one not so much. I'm pretty sure it was based on his behaviour and his words, almost none of which appear to have been designed to create harmony across the population.

He's said, "Russia, Russia, Russia," for six years now, and you know he was right. Again.

Most of what I heard re. Russia was (paraphrasing in case it isn't obvious) "Putin - he's this smart guy I like him a lot and get on well with him"

In terms of "the enemy" what I heard was "China, China, China" and, if I'm being fair, whilst I'm dubious about his methods I'm not sure he was wrong about the target.

64

General Comments / Re: Thoughts and Prayers - Again...

« on: June 10, 2022, 05:10:34 AM »

“I did, I spoke to the leader of the Taliban today, we had a good conversation,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House, adding that he and Taliban leaders “agreed there is no violence, we don’t want violence.”

If only Mike Pence had refused to certify the electoral count, we'd have perfect relations with a free Afghanistan. Trump surely would have guaranteed us victory, just like I wrote about in my MAGA fan fiction!

To be fair to Trump there was surprisingly little violence - the Taliban just took over.  Maybe that was the deal?

65

General Comments / Re: God Exists

« on: June 09, 2022, 11:41:40 AM »

Singular
There are two branes, the vibration between each of which sustains the existence of our universe. Fourteenth-dimensional observers call one of them "Ultra-A", and the other one "Ultra-B". They don't know which is which, not least because there definitionally can be no distinguishing features or positioning or anything that would let someone reliably make a distinction, but they sometimes like to write stories in which the two branes are in love but cannot be together because they don't want to accidentally destroy the universe they didn't really intend to make in the first place. In these stories, the authors impute to "Ultra-A" a slightly supercilious British accent, but of course that's fictional.

Thank you - that bit made my day

66

General Comments / Re: SOP

« on: June 09, 2022, 06:17:50 AM »

As I understand it - he did turn up with all those things (but if you believe in everyone's right to remain heavily armed at all times then what is the problem) - then he turned himself in before doing anything more than turning up near the house. I am all for people who are about to commit a crime tuning themselves in before doing so.  If that is the mark of the Left then hurrah for the Left!

67

General Comments / Re: Thoughts and Prayers - Again...

« on: June 09, 2022, 06:07:08 AM »

The point you’re avoiding is that a poorly armed and trained force defeated the US military. Now, you can try to blame that on the dementia addled “president “ - and be accurate in that assessment. But the bottom line is the taliban won. They got their country back and the US out. Nothing you say will change that fact.

So according to your definition of "defeated", if I punch someone until they are just lying there, and eventually I get bored and walk away, they have "defeated me"?

Nope. Wanna try again?

I would rate your reading comprehension...of your own statement, to be very weak if you can't see how this conclusion follows. You claim the Taliban "defeated" the U.S., and 'defeated' according to you means the U.S. decided to leave. It's simply a tautological statement, and if you can't see that then as Tom has pointed out it seems unlikely you are interested in seeing it.

As I see it

Initially the USA (+ allies, but its an American driven operation) successfully drove the Taliban from power
Then for many years they suppressed the Taliban.  They found it impossible to eliminate them.
There were very inconsistent attempts at aid / nation building. This phase was generally a failure.
After seeing no end point to the operation and having suffered a political change that tends towards isolationism they go "Can't be bothered any more" and withdraw.
Everyone expects the abandoned Afghan government to fall in a year or so.
Everyone (on all sides) is surprised when it only takes a month or so.

So assuming that the objective was to leave Afghanistan a stable West leaning state then something failed (and if it wasn't what was the objective? revenge?). Now whether you think it was the Govt or the Military or both probably depends on your politics and how much you conflate the Govt with the Military and whether or not you think it should have been possible to eliminate the Taliban and/or build a functional national government.

Now at this point does defeat equate with "failure to achieve objectives"? Probably not (there is a gap between defeat and victory), but its close enough for a politician, and certainly close enough if you want an argument.

68

General Comments / Re: Thoughts and Prayers - Again...

« on: June 08, 2022, 07:11:25 AM »

And how can you feel safe knowing that their next-door neighbor has a 10-kiloton atomic bomb, and you don't??

My god, how could you possibly defend yourself?

You think the next door neighbor can shell out millions to aquire a nuclear bomb and the roughy $1.8 million per year to maintain it? Really?

My god, do you even hear yourself?

Lets try the much simpler and cheaper alternative of - don't you feel so much safer on the subway knowing that the guy sitting next to you has a bandolier of grenades on him?

69

General Comments / Thoughts and Prayers - Again...

« on: May 25, 2022, 06:29:33 AM »

Title says it all really

70

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: May 19, 2022, 12:20:53 PM »

I don't consider Putin to be a reckless but I can't figure out what he was thinking he would gain.

I assume he figured it would go like Crimea. That the West would make some token protests, Ukraine would quickly capitulate, and then.... I don't know what it gains. Restoration of the Empire? Having a strategic location to threaten Europe?

I think restoration of empire.  There seems to be a feeling (maybe not utterly unwarranted) that things were better in the USSR and they want it back. I'm pretty sure that Putin thought that Ukraine would fall as easily (and mostly bloodlessly) as Crimea.

71

General Comments / Re: Cryptocurrencies

« on: May 19, 2022, 12:11:57 PM »

When someone forgets thier crypto currency password and loses access to the funds. What is lost? Where does the energy as represented by the currency go?

It doesn't go anywhere - it stays spent, inaccessible to everyone.

72

General Comments / Re: Cryptocurrencies

« on: May 19, 2022, 05:01:20 AM »

You can talk about it all you want, but this isn't a zero sum system.  There is no finite resource to allocate - its questionable whether there is any resource.

Not really true. Yes you can create any number of crypto currencies if you have buy-in from punters, but each currency is a finite resource - that is sort of the point - it gets exponentially more difficult to mine new coins as time goes on (along with the exponentially increasing energy requirements to mine them) and the infinite sum has a finite value (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8... = 2).

73

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: May 18, 2022, 06:32:28 AM »

Whatever Trump did resulted in Putin not further invading Ukraine and the Taliban not taking over Afghanistan under his watch. Biden did an about face and unleashed hell in both places.

I'm not sure you can reasonably credit Trump with those non-disasters any more than you can blame him for existence of Covid.  Those are things that happened when he was in charge no more no less.

The Afghanistan debacle was Trumps plan executed (arguably poorly) by Biden with immediate consequences that no-one, on any side as far as I can tell, expected. Pretty much everyone expected the Afghan government to collapse, but no-one expected how fast it was going to be. And it would have collapsed if Trump was in charge too, the details might have been different but any assertion that it would have been worse/better is based purely on Faith not facts.

Can't say as to Ukraine.  My personal expectation is that Putin would have executed his "Special Military Operation" and Trump would have stood back and said that he was just reclaiming what was his anyway.  And whilst I can't know that it does fit with Trumps general inclination to reduce Americas military presence around the world.

I have no evidence that Trump caused Covid. And I don't think he did though of course it might have been some really cunning plot and the Chinese are in fact right when they say it was deliberated seeded in China by America to discredit them as part of Trumps long term anti-China campaign - that fits doesn't it!?

74

General Comments / Re: The Great Replacement?

« on: May 18, 2022, 06:10:54 AM »

I think it might be similar to how mass violence worked out in the Reformation. Protestant riots usually would go and smash up Catholic churches and statues due to their iconoclasm. Catholics didn't have similar material targets so they tended to slaughter Protestants when their blood was up.

The Protestants (in England at least) definitely went out of their way to hunt down Catholic priests.  Old houses in the right bits of the country often have "priest holes" (secret rooms - normally very small) where priests could hide when the hunters came round.

75

General Comments / Re: We gotta talk about Uncle Joe

« on: May 17, 2022, 09:23:22 AM »

Jc,

Wm also firmly believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

I have actually lurked on this site for long enough to remember the days where there were impassioned multi-thousand word posts on the science that supposedly backed young-eartherism (I didn't join back then 'cos I was sure my typing speed wasn't up to the required rate - some of those posts were _long_) so its nice to know that the breed has not completely died out here. 

76

General Comments / Re: We gotta talk about Uncle Joe

« on: May 17, 2022, 05:30:16 AM »

Why can't the Democrats admit their responsibilities for everything they've done? Nothing failed under Trump. That happened as Biden stopped Trump policies and ignored his achievements. You can't deny that every time Biden blocked a successful Trump initiative that the result was negative. I, personally believe the whole Covid-19 closing of the economy was a Democrat strategy to block Trump's reelection. No one can prove the Pandemic was politically inspired, but it sure has some interesting coincidences that all focus back to the Democrats, though.

OK - I know that I'm going to regret asking this but how do you manage to construe the worldwide Covid pandemic as a Democrat plot?  That seems even more implausible to me than the CIA raiding servers and the Kraken (both of which seem to have faded into the mist).

77

General Comments / Re: #Tweetstorm 14:1-5

« on: May 17, 2022, 05:20:28 AM »

Even if people had control of perfect opt in filtering that meant you'd never see somebody talking about subhuman n*ggers unless you deliberately choose to, it is in society's best interests to limit the spread of that message and reinforcement of behavior that inevitably leads to harm to the object of their hatred. That hatred might manifest as street altercations, murder, or verbal assault. Being able to see that there are millions of other racists subscribed to r/whitepower encourages racists to feel like it's normal and just another point of view. I mean like, sure that's pretty much what r/tuckercarlson is, but they have to speak in coffee at least.

See my prior post regarding how insulting, and frankly sad, it is to see so many people being fully bought into the idea of there being tens of millions of "racists in waiting" just waiting for their chance to connect with a Racist group online where they'll instantly transform from a 3 of out 10 on the racism scale to 11 out of 10 overnight(or over 20 years) because of that.

You ever consider the possibility that also works in reverse? That 3/10 guy, once exposed to 10/10 guy might very quickly become 1/10 guy instead. That is kind of what happened in the 1960's when the racism of the deep south was given national news coverage on television. Why should you expect people would find "full exposure" any less repugnant today?

Sure, if you let the racists "groom" their targets, you leave those people wide open for conversion, a little bit at a time. But they can only do that now because in major media channels, all they could hope to encounter is a caricature of such groups on a television drama or action/adventure.

I'm perfectly prepared to believe that majority of people when confronted by such extreme views just go "oh look, another nutter" but the issue is how big the minority is that goes "there must be something in that" and get drawn in (vs. what would have happened if not exposed).  Unfortunately you only need a small proportion of the population to be radicalized to to present a real danger to society.

78

General Comments / Re: We gotta talk about Uncle Joe

« on: May 13, 2022, 09:52:55 AM »

I can't comment on whether the stocks held by the border patrol are appropriate I really don't have that info and I doubt the authors of the linked article had (or cared) either, but I will note that even if supply of baby food was normal, now there is perceived to be a shortage of it, the shelves would be empty and those who were lucky enough to find it would be hording it rather than sharing it with their fellow citizens.  In the UK at the start of the pandemic there was a massive toilet roll shortage, not because there was any lack of supply but just because people thought there might be a shortage and so bought everything they could see creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

79

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: May 12, 2022, 06:28:31 AM »

...Are you advocating us to engage in copyright infringement?

No. I want you to pay the $19.95 as advertised, because unless you pay for something you can't believe it is legitimate. But while that transaction is under way, you can look at the free streams to learn what you should know.

Please justify why it is necessary to pay for something for it to be legitimate?  And are you also stating that if you pay for something then it must be legitimate? Given that I'm not paying anything to read your posts - does that mean I shouldn't believe them?

80

General Comments / Re: The Jan 6 Commission

« on: April 05, 2022, 01:29:34 PM »

Your contention is that a President is required to document all "official business" in a permanent record?

That would appear to be what this says (a slightly better link I think than the previous one):

https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html

81

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: March 06, 2022, 06:16:14 AM »

TheDeamon

I don't know if it's true or not but I heard that since elected, President Biden hasn't had any direct communication with the leadership of Ukraine.

That much I'm pretty sure is false:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-zelensky-meet-white-house-amid-ukraine-russia-conflict-n1278232

and in the reporting of Saturday's conversations Zelensky uses the words "another phone call with POTUS" indicating that there has been prior communication.

82

General Comments / Re: Do Republicans know what defamation/libel is?

« on: February 21, 2022, 06:55:36 AM »

To paraphrase the Bard, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome VP?"

"troublesome" -> "turbulent" and apparently not Shakespeare but Robert Dodsley (1740).  But according to wikipedia the earlier version of that line from Edward Grim who saw Becket murdered is good too "What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born VP (cleric)!"

83

General Comments / Re: Do Republicans know what defamation/libel is?

« on: February 17, 2022, 05:14:16 AM »

Trump collusion with Russia to steal the 2020 election. I know you said don't bring up 2020 but this lie went on for years and maybe most Democrats still believe it today.

Just so I'm on the same page as everyone else, I thought that the allegation was that the Trump team talked to the Russians before the 2016 election and so that was the one that was "stolen". Yes, from a UK perspective, Trump seemed to have a possibly unhealthy admiration for strongman Putin and was not averse to using his contacts to stir up trouble for his enemies (lets not call them opponents - that implies some sort of respect), but I hadn't really heard that he'd tried to use Russia to steal 2020. Putin likes to stir up trouble abroad, and it seems very likely that he prefers Trump to Biden so any interference was likely independent though I can't see Trump going out of his way to prevent it.

84

General Comments / Re: The Real Disinformation - spying on the president

« on: February 15, 2022, 12:07:27 PM »

He would have been called some bad names by Democrats, been impeached by Congress but found innocent by the Senate?

85

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: February 15, 2022, 11:47:39 AM »

I would wager the majority of the public still probably believes that covid is more deadly for kids than the flu but there's nothing to be done about it, can't unring that bell.

Can you find stats to back that up? My brief research suggests that in the last stats year flu caused 199 pediatric deaths (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2020-2021/pediatric-flu-deaths-reach-new-high.htm) and covid ~470 (https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-on-Ages-0-18-Yea/nr4s-juj3 table is over 2 years so /2) so whilst I can't account for all factors covid certainly doesn't seem to be less deadly than flu.

Don't have time to go data-hunting right now but I don't think it's that much of a mystery. This article was pre-omicron, which clearly is much milder.

About 3x as many children die from drowning than covid - maybe they're all just wearing the wrong kind of mask.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/21/999241558/in-kids-the-risk-of-covid-19-and-the-flu-are-similar-but-the-risk-perception-isn

https://www.vox.com/22699019/covid-19-children-kids-risk-hospitalization-death

And I would wager that many many more die in car related accidents than either but that's not really the point.  My covid stats cover the omicron period (which turned out to be better at infecting kids than earlier variants even if generally milder).  If you had said that the chances of a child dying of covid are really very small and people are really bad at assessing risk then I would have been forced to agree with you but you compared it to flu where, at best, your statement is debateable.

86

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: February 15, 2022, 07:37:10 AM »

I would wager the majority of the public still probably believes that covid is more deadly for kids than the flu but there's nothing to be done about it, can't unring that bell.

Can you find stats to back that up? My brief research suggests that in the last stats year flu caused 199 pediatric deaths (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2020-2021/pediatric-flu-deaths-reach-new-high.htm) and covid ~470 (https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-on-Ages-0-18-Yea/nr4s-juj3 table is over 2 years so /2) so whilst I can't account for all factors covid certainly doesn't seem to be less deadly than flu.

87

General Comments / Re: 'AlphaCode' - better than 54% of competitive programmers

« on: February 03, 2022, 05:10:05 AM »

TheDrake,

the number of professional programmers who can't do FizzBuzz is pretty astronomical.

Like me, the author is having trouble with the fact that 199 out of 200 applicants for every programming job can't write code at all. I repeat: they can't write any code whatsoever.

[...]

Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz".

Most good programmers should be able to write out on paper a program which does this in a under a couple of minutes. Want to know something scary? The majority of comp sci graduates can't. I've also seen self-proclaimed senior programmers take more than 10-15 minutes to write a solution.

https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/164156/are-most-applicants-really-unable-to-implement-fizzbuzz-in-an-interview

I hate these questions. They are made up brain ticklers that have nothing to do with the actual job. I'm guessing the reason people take so long isn't to get the correct output algorithmically, is that they are worried about their code being elegant or optimized. Just look at all this foolishness in the link below, giving the"right" answers prone to difficult testing and debug.

The simple algorithm is to seed the list with content equal to index, then walk by 3 and fizz it. Walk a third time by fives and buzz the contents.

Voila.

But then some joker will weep uncontrollably and tsk you for walking the array three times when you only had to do it once, or because you are generating memory read operations when you didn't need to.

At which point, our poor interviewee tries to point out that this likely can't matter because of the size of the array.

Then the interviewer says, what I'd there were a million entries?

Well that wasn't the design you asked for, and I think I'm done here I withdraw my application.

https://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest

If you are a programmer and hope that the client will ask you for what they actually want then you are sadly deluded - at least thinking what extensions might be required will normally save you time later and if interviewing I would look for that attitude in a candidate.

But going back to interview, the obvious easy and efficient answer to the question is: "I construct a constant string which conforms to the spec and then print it".

88

General Comments / Re: Airlines and 5G

« on: January 20, 2022, 12:54:26 PM »

Its been a known issue for some time - on the whole it seems to me that the frequency gap should be plenty if the altimeters are any good at all. My (probably biased) distillation of the argument goes: FAA is informed about the change, FAA says "if this goes though we would have to to recertify some altimeters", FAA recertifies 2 altimeters, FAA sits on hands hoping that the other side will give in and they won't have to do anything more, FAA realises that they should have got their finger out and threatens to ground everything in a last ditch effort to avoid doing something and/or spending money.

Can't you put that on the airlines too? Airlines know this is going to happen and the altimeters on 40% of their fleet are not certified. They sit on their hands hoping that the other side will give in and they don't have to retrofit their planes. Then the shoe drops and they have to reroute the world because they didn't want to install compliant gear.

Fair enough, I'm convinced - I'm happy to spread the blame to the airlines :-)

89

General Comments / Re: Airlines and 5G

« on: January 20, 2022, 08:58:18 AM »

Its been a known issue for some time - on the whole it seems to me that the frequency gap should be plenty if the altimeters are any good at all. My (probably biased) distillation of the argument goes: FAA is informed about the change, FAA says "if this goes though we would have to to recertify some altimeters", FAA recertifies 2 altimeters, FAA sits on hands hoping that the other side will give in and they won't have to do anything more, FAA realises that they should have got their finger out and threatens to ground everything in a last ditch effort to avoid doing something and/or spending money.

90

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: December 31, 2021, 08:01:02 AM »

The UK system has its flaws, IMHO First past the post being the main one, but I'm going to assert (without, I admit, a shred of evidence to back it up) that nearly everybody here believes that your votes get cast and counted without significant fraud.

91

General Comments / Re: Net Neutrality 2.0

« on: December 15, 2021, 10:44:31 AM »

5G is going to be a game changer for ISP potential. 10Gb speed over wireless, not requiring the $1000 considered typical to lay fiber.

Part of the US challenge is the sheer distances involved that have to get plumbed, I would imagine. I also suspect that the costs we see directly are charged indirectly in the UK.

I can't research these suspicions because my internet is too slow in my impoverished nation.

Beware that those 5G speeds are only achievable on short-hop line-of-sight (or very close to that - blocked by almost anything) connections and you need fixed infrastructure built out to that distribution point.  More "normal" 5G connections are only a bit faster than 4G.

92

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: December 03, 2021, 02:40:04 PM »

I think omicron is still in the early stages of spread so most countries really only do have a few cases - South Africa spotted its existence very quickly, probably helped by the fact that it produces unusual results on standard PCR tests (one test that you would expect to be positive given that all the others are is negative for omicron - if you want more detail than that you are going to have to google it yourself).

93

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: November 20, 2021, 09:47:20 AM »

What has the study of algae to do with anything?

It is the next evolution of the Republican Party? (sorry - just too easy) :-)

94

General Comments / Re: How broken does a justice system have to be before vigilantism is moral?

« on: November 07, 2021, 07:24:22 AM »

This was interesting too.

"A Duke University-led study of a decade of criminal convictions in Florida, for example, found that all-white jury pools convicted Black defendants 16% more often than white defendants. But when even just one Black person was added to the jury pool, the gap in conviction rates nearly disappeared."

Why?

Was the defendant actually innocent or was it a form of jury nullification, maybe even subconscious?

The implication of that factoid is that justice was done because the defendant was not convicted, but if the defendant actually did the crime and the evidence proved it, if they were not convicted then is that really justice?

You gotta love how the media spins these things one way but their own facts don't always go in the direction they like to assume.

Of course the same type of thing would be in play for white juries with white victims too. Hardly likely that it would only work for one group.

If you want my guess, I'd go with the presence of a Black person on the jury made the other members of the jury less likely to express racist views in their deliberations and the lack of such stereotyping meant more weight was given to the facts and arguments presented in court.  That seems to fit with my observations of human nature.

95

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: October 29, 2021, 05:27:25 AM »

<snip>
I'm afraid that 90% of the people could vote for Trump and the Democrats would still steal it.

This worries me. I disagree with the statement and do not believe it to be true, but the fact that intelligent people can post this on open forums with apparent sincerity demonstrates that something is terribly broken in society and I have no idea how to fix it.

For the record: I'm sure there was some voter fraud, there always is, but not in quantities sufficient to make any difference and probably in similar quantities on each side (even the CyberNinja report said approx. that) and probably not not substantially greater quantity than in previous years.  I'm sure electoral law is always bent a bit, probably more this time than in previous years due to reasonable attempts to avoid disenfranchising voters who were affected by Covid restrictions or worries.  But on the whole I do actually believe that the US is capable of counting votes. I do think there are a number of "oddities" in its system (electoral college, gerrymandering, ...) that might be improved but those aren't relevant here.

96

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: October 13, 2021, 06:50:31 AM »

After reading wmLamberts message, my first thought was "so of that 73% how many are no-party?", which he hadn't broken out, so I went and looked for the actual report.. The only report I could find was the one on Maricopa county which is published on the AZ senate republican website (https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/cyber-ninjas-report).  Vol III gives the actual numbers which unsurprisingly assign "fraud" in mail-in ballots generally to democrats (by a few %), but also assigns "fraud" in in-person ballots to republicans (in dead people voting: republicans 50%, democrat 30%, 20% other). So if read in full its a mixed bag and I don't have the experience to critique it though there are plenty of websites that have or have cherry-picked parts of it out there.

Aren't Cyber Ninjas meant to have done a statewide audit?  Why can't I find a report for that?

97

General Comments / Re: How broken does a justice system have to be before vigilantism is moral?

« on: September 16, 2021, 07:24:29 AM »

I think the charge laid against the Sacklers was not that they merely supplied the opioids that were requested of them but that they actively promoted the use of their opioids in situations where they knew then to be harmful. And I'm going to suggest that there must be at least a kernel of truth to that given that they have settled the case for a very large sum of money (even if the terms of the settlement mean that the impact on them personally is small) rather than fight the case.

98

General Comments / Re: New trans laws

« on: September 14, 2021, 06:02:31 AM »

So can someone (someone other than Fenring), explain what I'm supposedly getting wrong in what Fenring is saying?

The way I see the above discussion Fenring said the terms are needed to solve practical matters in matters of law. When I asked, he explained (and was indignant that I needed to ask) that he was talking about the legal oppression of gay people, and that's what he meant. Then I restated it, and he got upset again.

What am I *censored*ing misunderstanding? Someone other than Fenring, please.

I can't read anyone's mind, but I can see that the term "homosexual" would be useful in law in lists of things that it is illegal to discriminate against or to convert an "ordinary" crime into a hate crime.  So good for striking down the sort of laws given in the example.  It does not seem implausible to me that that is what Fenring meant. His initial phrasing suggests to me that he wasn't in favour of the oppression, and given he knew that he couldn't then comprehend that you didn't know it too - I have found that if you know what you meant when you wrote something it is often terribly hard to work out why anyone else can't see that.

99

General Comments / Re: Thank You, OSC

« on: August 27, 2021, 06:34:53 AM »

As a long time lurker (over 20 years now) I thought I should join the board before it goes away to express how much I've enjoyed reading the points of view expressed on this board.  I have not always agreed, I'm from the UK so my politics are liberal (not a dirty word here) by most US standards and I believe that the Earth is > 10000 years old but the arguments have normally been made cogently and in detail which I appreciate.

I'm poor and slow at essay writing, which is another reason I didn't join long ago, so if this is the end I'll just say "Thank you for everything" and if there is an afterlife I'll add "... and long may it continue".