3,093 karma · joined February 11, 2025
The opportunity cost—the shadow, if you will, that the cost of children casts on your future retirement savings—is enormous. It’s way larger than the nominal cost. Big ouch.
And I expect even a VR meeting space would see more use that’s worse than a normal video call but is happening because someone in charge is over the moon for it, than it’d see use in the far rarer cases where it’s really better.
The ones for me usually look way shittier or just use Etsy.
[edit] the only exception I can come up with is Imaginary Authors, which is much slicker-looking than this, actually, but with a far darker palette—this one definitely says “this is feminine stuff” in the design. And actually I’d say IA leans far more feminine as far as overall vibe of their catalog than most others that’ve had at least one scent that worked out for me.
I worked at a place that used one.
Because the actually functionality they provide is the same as Slack, but worse in basically every way, is maybe why.
As soon as you go to two rooms, airbnb gets more appealing fast.
It’s also great where there are either no hotels, or the only options are motels, if you want somewhere with a kitchen and such.
Good for destination-type getaways where the point is to mostly hang out at the airbnb. Hotels suck for that. Even the nicer suite-type ones mostly do.
It's probably the cheapest non-DIY coffee making option out there.
I find the good stuff to basically be a totally different category of drink, I think is what helps. Most coffee is pretty much just "coffee flavored" with just a little variation. The good stuff... it sits somewhere between coffee and tea, often has surprisingly little "coffee flavor", and delivers all kinds of interesting and delicate notes.
Like if you ask me "where can I get some good coffee around here" I've got recommendations, but if you follow up with "no, I mean good coffee" I'm going to have a different set of recommendations. Good coffee is a separate category of drink, LOL.
I figure it's a similar story for most of the other big national or multinational coffee roasters, which is why it's almost impossible to find those correctly-roasted, delicate, tea-like coffees from anything but tiny roasters. Those places, two of their "medium roasts" may taste wildly different and if their supply of the beans for one variety dries up, that one's gone unless they can find a way to get more of it. Dunkin or whoever just want to always be able to have a bag with the same name on it on the shelf, and for it to always taste the same, even if that same-taste is not very good.
Good beans make better cold brew, but bad beans make much better cold brew than they do hot coffee.
By far my favorite coffee-making device I've got. I'd just do drip but cleaning the machines is a PITA (lots of people don't bother and their coffee all tastes like mildew, it's disgusting) and they all expose hot water to lots of plastic, seems like. I have a French press but it's a bigger pain to clean. Pourover cup takes up less space than any of that, too.
Not so far removed from a multi-CPU Pentium at 90 or 100MHz, from the very early Pentium days.
I guess what I had in mind was first-gen Pentiums. They’re solidly in the first half of the ‘90s but “early 90s” does cover a broader period, and yeah, 486 wouldn’t quite cut it. They’re the oldest machines I can recall multitasking very comfortably on… given the right software.
I'm still waiting to experience a version of this conversation where I'm not informed that the tool they want doesn't exist or all the ones they have are bad because they lack X and Y and include Z, am treated to a description of the tool they want, and then am able to find a half-dozen options for that exact thing on my very first try, all of which seem to be struggling for sales :-/
Mine are always "you're a developer? You should build X, you'd make so much money, I'd buy it!", then me: "really? That's great! Here are several options I just found for X, is this what you meant, and if not, what are they missing?", "Oh yeah, what do you know, that's exactly it!" and the topic is dropped, with them displaying so little interest in the existing solutions I showed them that it's clear they never would have paid for mine, either.
I think I see what you mean, however: that your original post in this thread could be read as setting that aside and treating of just the sub-topic of whether there's any fraud in science (of course there's some).
However, the post I responded to (not your post, to be clear) mentioned DOGE by name: "I have yet to see any real evidence of fraud from the DOGE reports" (to be fair to that poster, I think they read your "why do think so much fraud has been uncovered lately?" as being about that, given the context of the thread, and as the most prominent claims of fraud in general and, specifically, in government funding of science lately have been from DOGE and friends, though evidently that's not what you meant). Between that, TFA, and the root of the thread, I hope you can see why I bristled a bit at being accused of being "the only person talking about DOGE in this thread", given that I was responding to a post that mentioned them by name, and that it's, more-or-less, also the topic of TFA and the root post of this thread.
I do empathize with your being exhausted with the topic of Trump/DOGE, but would suggest that this is maybe not a good thread to expect to avoid it in, given the topic of the linked article.
We're building some stuff that actively uses it—not (just) using it to write code, but integrating it into business processes.
This is both:
1) A far, far more valuable use of it than as a replacement for e.g. macros in your editor, assuming it worked as one might hope it would.
2) In practice so incredibly brittle, tightly-coupled, expensive, and slow to develop (not to mention some of the most boring work I've ever done in my 25 year career) relative to other options that the business could have embraced at any time in the last 15 years (but didn't because it took the hype of "AI" to gain activation energy for the project) all with no evident path toward any of that meaningfully improving, that I'm looking for an exit to another project that's ideally non-AI-related for when this one turns into a nightmare before eventually imploding and staining everyone involved's reputation, if not getting them fired. I reckon the nightmare phase is about six months out, for this one, and the implosion 12-18 out.
I expect similar stories are playing out all over the place.
No, the claim was:
> The democrats have fundamentally abandoned the working class in favor of stupid wedge issues. It was the "progressives" who chose to shift their campaign focus onto gaining more privileges for trans women, abolishing the police force, endorsing Islamic supremacist groups tale of their own victimhood, and denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy. I don't see how any of this is aimed at the working class.
The only one of the four claimed positions that's even arguably not a fantasy ginned up by Republican propaganda is the one about trans women. The post was blaming democrats for taking positions that they did not take.
Yeah, that's enough of this for one day.
Yes, the economic consequences (long-term to research and researcher-training and the industries that rely on them on the one end, and shorter term to e.g. farm and construction labor on the other) are definitely a highlight of democratic rhetoric against Trump's immigration enforcement regime & priorities, as far as "why we shouldn't do this", second perhaps only to matters of due process now that those have been forced to the fore (which is more of a, "regardless of what we're trying to do, this is an illegal way to go about it").
I suppose the third pillar of the push-back, maybe also more-prominent than the economic argument now that vague concerns have become concrete, is on humanitarian grounds, resisting specifically deporting people who're likely to come to harm if they are sent back, and shipping people to foreign prisons controlled by states with poor human rights records—of course this is heavily tied up with the whole due-process thing, since that's key to settling whether these sorts of claims have merit, if one cares whether they have merit.
It is true that Democrats often claim that a big part of why Republicans are so eager to crack down on illegal immigrants even at the expense of waves hand at paragraphs above is due to various -isms and -phobias, but you're right that I don't see a lot of "the reason we shouldn't do this is because it's racist/xenophobic", but rather "we shouldn't do this because [list of practical and humanitarian reasons]" (perhaps followed up by, "the reason the Republicans want to do this is racism and xenophobia", which I think is reductive and not very useful but is at least somewhat more-accurate than the opposing framing of motivation as, "democrats actively want, specifically, violent foreign criminals in our cities")
DOGE got ahold of Obama's time machine?
What people expect is a connection between the claims of fraud and the massive cuts, funding pauses (which effectively destroy some research, wasting any money already spent), and disruptive reorganizations. The claim is that DOGE is uncovering so very much fraud all over the place, that you practically can't enter a government office without tripping over fraud. Where's all this fraud, justifying such extreme measures? They say they found it! Where are the indictments? Where are the investigations? There should be lots of them.
... unless they're lying.
Why don't people who can avoid these clauses embrace them anyway, since the justification is that the company needs and deserves your undivided attention to the greatest legally allowed degree, when they have far more power over the company and are being rewarded far more for their effort? The same reasoning applies far more to them! Because it's very undesirable to be restricted in that way, of course, so damn the company's best interests.
If it's very undesirable to be restrained by these, and the benefit to the employer is evidently not so large that it's necessary to restrict those for whom the reasoning applies 1,000x more than for some lowly peon, why do normal workers accept those clauses approximately 100% of the time they're demanded? Because they don't feel they have a choice.
"Voluntary" isn't binary.
[EDIT] From the Trump campaign's "2024 GOP Platform" doc:
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1. Secure the Border
Republicans will restore every Border Policy of the Trump administration and halt all releases of Illegal Aliens into the interior. We will complete the Border Wall, shift massive portions of Federal Law Enforcement to Immigration Enforcement, and use advanced technology to monitor and secure the Border. We will use all resources needed to stop the Invasion— including moving thousands of Troops currently stationed overseas to our own Southern Border. We will deploy the U.S. Navy to impose a full Fentanyl Blockade on the waters of our Region—boarding and inspecting ships to look for fentanyl and fentanyl precursors. Before we defend the Borders of Foreign Countries, we must first secure the Border of our Country.
2. Enforce Immigration Laws
Republicans will strengthen ICE, increase penalties for illegal entry and overstaying Visas, and reinstate “Remain in Mexico” and other Policies that helped reduce Illegal Immigration by historic lows in President Trump’s first term. We will also invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members from the United States, ending the scourge of Illegal Alien gang violence once and for all. We will bring back the Travel Ban, and use Title 42 to end the child trafficking crisis by returning all trafficked children to their families in their Home Countries immediately.
3. Begin Largest Deportation Program in American History
President Trump and Republicans will reverse the Democrats’ destructive Open Borders Policies that have allowed criminal gangs and Illegal Aliens from around the World to roam the United States without consequences. The Republican Party is committed to sending Illegal Aliens back home and removing those who have violated our Laws.
4. Strict Vetting
Republicans will use existing Federal Law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America. Those who join our Country must love our Country. We will use extreme vetting to ensure that jihadists and jihadist sympathizers are not admitted.
5. Stop Sanctuary Cities
Republicans will cut federal Funding to sanctuary jurisdictions that release dangerous Illegal Alien criminals onto our streets, rather than handing them over to ICE. We will require local cooperation with Federal Immigration Enforcement.
6. Ensure Our Legal Immigration System Puts American Workers First
Republicans will prioritize Merit-based immigration, ensuring those admitted to our Country contribute positively to our Society and Economy, and never become a drain on Public Resources. We will end Chain Migration, and put American Workers first!
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This basically fits with his proxies' rhetoric on e.g. Fox News, and his points at rallies: a little about the jobs aspect, but most of it's about how dangerous illegal immigrants are.
Democrats have been pushing back on the language of that, because "illegals" had plainly become a slur and tool for othering and dehumanizing. I think democrats focus on that horse-shit way too much—though, then again, shifting language that way as that kind of political tool is something Republicans do and had done in this case, so maybe I'm wrong and they're right for trying to stop it—but that's what the sign's about, it's a topic they've had a bug up their ass about for like twenty damn years.
Look at the things you're comparing: a misreading of a somewhat-common yard sign plus what Fox News and Mark Levin say the democrats support, versus a concerted effort by a highly influential prominent think-tank that involved so very many top folks in Trump's campaign that his statements distancing himself from it were never anything but blatant lies.
Show me something actually equivalent, and you'll have a point. Find me the most-influential think tank you can that supports stuff like "abolishing the police force" or "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". CFR? Brookings? Atlantic Council? IDK, find one. Find a policy statement on that stuff, Democrats usually put tons of policy docs on their campaign websites because they're nerds who incorrectly think normal people both can and are willing to read, so it should be well-documented. After all, the claim was that they shifted their campaign focus to that! To "abolishing the police force" (?!) and such. Not that a few individual democrats with little or no power said some things, maybe.
> That's a distinction without a difference.
Once you erase the long list of material fucking differences, sure.
> If Democratic voters and activists are pushing for a given position
ALMOST NONE ARE. The person who "deny[ies] the basic right for country to have an immigration policy" is vanishingly rare and you'll have at least as much luck finding them among the committed libertarian sorts as even the farther-left end of democrats—still not much luck, but about as much.
It's correct to say it's a problem for democrats that people think they hold these positions. It's incorrect to say it's because they in-fact do. It's because of effective propaganda.
You folks are assigning a caricature of their positions to them and then blaming them for adopting those caricatured positions. WT literal F.
Also the boss: claims to hold five jobs at five different organizations.
(I don't even mean Elon, I mean the median "founder" type, but him too I guess, except that I think he's up to more than five)
I have very bad news for you re: the last ~70 years of research on voter behavior in democracies.
The story of the field is, if I may paint it a bit poetically, researchers hiding under their desks and rocking back and forth going "it can't be that bad... it can't really work like that..." until they gin up the courage to look again, find it's even worse than they thought, and repeat the cycle.
The usual way I notice I'm not logged in is by getting blocked after interacting with ~3 different parts of the site within a minute. If I search, click a single repo, and stay in that repo without using search, it seems to go OK, but if I interact with search and then a couple repos, or search again, temp-banned.
[EDIT] To ground this, the claim is that it's reasonable to interpret "no human is illegal" as "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". This is a "reasonable" leap reached by following "what you need to interpret the sign". Not a hostile interpretation by someone who already decided what's what and is working backwards from that.