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alexanderdmitri

1,688 karma · joined January 10, 2017

    // Alexander Dmitri is property of Gala Corp.

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      try {
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          self.doStuff();
          self.sleep();
        }
      }
      catch (fatalError) {
        console.error(`Whoops! ${fatalError}`);
      }
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        console.timeEnd("lifetime");
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    }(self));
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alexanderdmitri··on I Am Not a Reverse Centaur
I think this is from Sartre's "Literature & Existentialism."

I'm not a big fan of his generally, but I highly recommend this book in particular. A lot of what he wrote there really resonated for me.

alexanderdmitri··on He Lost It at the Movies
This was an enjoyable read, thank you!
alexanderdmitri··on Who will buy your services if you fire us all?
why 2030?
alexanderdmitri··on Neanderthals drilled cavities to treat a toothache 59,000 years ago
This is exactly the type of comment I'd expect from a time-traveling alien trying to cover its tracks.

Why did you create us? Why do you hide in the shadows?!

alexanderdmitri··on Meet the real screen addicts: the elderly
19.7% of children and adolescents are obese in the United States[0]. These are definitely forces outside their control during critical years of development. It's like blaming someone for being impoverished when they grew up in an impoverished atmosphere (also a popular view in the States).

Sure they could beat the odds on either issue when get older, but it's tough when you live in a system that works against you. It's good to say individuals should hold themselves accountable and not give up in the face of adversity, but from a macro-level it doesn't help fix the problem. I'd argue the your fault / deal with it attitude on these trends make those problems worse for a population.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood-obesity-facts/childhoo...

alexanderdmitri··on Scientists are discovering a powerful new way to prevent cancer
According to this there is a link between aspirin and successfully fighting cancer: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1d4n119xr7o
alexanderdmitri··on Did you lose your AirPods?
When I first got my plan / phone on the US east coast I was given the option to pick a number from anywhere in the country. I went with a fulsom county CA number and its come in really handy. I know to screen incoming calls that have the fulsom area code (always spam) and numbers that have the local area code where I live are actually legit.
alexanderdmitri··on CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops
incentive can and does undermine the stated goal. what if the government decided to take control of everyone's investment portfolio to prevent the market doing bad things? or an airplane manufacturer gets takes control of its own safety certification process because obviously its in their best interest that their planes are safe? imposed curfew, everyone has to be inside their homes while its dark outside because most violent crimes occur at night?
alexanderdmitri··on CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops
I feel like this is the fake reason given to try to hide the obvious reason: automatic updates are a power move that allows companies to retain control of products they've sold.
alexanderdmitri··on Naomi Wu and the Silence That Speaks Volumes
There was a pivot. At the beginning of the pandemic there were a number of American institutions saying masks were ineffective and unnecessary[1]

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-di...

alexanderdmitri··on People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes
> it's because people have the irrational belief that their thinking and reasoning more about a problem/decision makes their outcome better.

i'm not sure this is correct. i bet it often comes down to whether we've found an [emotionally] satisfying answer/outcome.

alexanderdmitri··on Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order (2018)
I'm not sure driver mistaking the pedals is a fair starting point with the amount of software involved now a days. Telsas push updates over the air that affect these sorts of things. In this article[0] for example, it's suggested a once optional feature that is now mandatory can be used for one pedal driving.

[0] https://electrek.co/2022/05/25/tesla-updates-car-software-re...

alexanderdmitri··on High cost of cancer care in the U.S. doesn’t reduce mortality rates
Both if the checkups help catch issues early or avoid them [0][1].

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2019/18_0625.htm

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-35073966

alexanderdmitri··on I saw a cool truck today
It seems like the way to go is get someone to inspect the store. Each item with a pricing violation is up to $25 for the first twenty items, up to $50 for each item after capped at a total $2000[0]. Successive inspections can become even more costly.

[0]: https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2006/new-york-city-adm...

alexanderdmitri··on U.S. economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter
Invest in the entities that are managing your storage and unfreezing.
alexanderdmitri··on Consumer prices rose 8.5% in March – highest since 1981
Russia is the third largest producer of nickel in the world:

https://qz.com/2139399/surging-nickel-prices-are-bad-news-fo...

alexanderdmitri··on Astronomers just discovered the farthest object in the known universe
Does that mean nothing is the center of the number line?
alexanderdmitri··on Mortgage rates just hit 5%. Buying a home has become a lot more expensive
Here's an article on mortgage/financing options for the ultra-wealthy: https://www.ft.com/content/ebf761ea-fcc8-4fd4-a636-87561398d...
alexanderdmitri··on The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
Also the 1.6 million office workers[0] would have one less reason to live in the city in the first place.

[0] https://www.osc.state.ny.us/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-11...

alexanderdmitri··on Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal is bad for privacy rights
Toyota's new 'more we know about you' program randomly extends their warranty for 2 years (or +50k miles) for new car buyers who have Crash Bandicoot game time in their dataset. Also Walmart will give $30 back on purchases >$125 if you have played at least five hours X-Men Legends in the last week while they're promoting the new Wolverine movie.

It's not all good though ... people who play Call of Duty are more likely to default on their loans and World of Warcraft is well known to have a strong correlation with sexual predators. Banks and FBI buy the relatively cheap video game data and use it to decide which individual's browsing history ($$$) and pc usage telemetry ($$$) to buy from Microsoft.

alexanderdmitri··on FalsiScan: Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
Wikipedia had a pretty good summary of implementation in different countries[0]. It seems most implementations are stopped because of privatization efforts, but the blurbs don't give much context.

I can see people having different opinions of this trend. What is your take on it?

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_system

alexanderdmitri··on FalsiScan: Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
Many poverty traps exist because they can be a lucrative enterprise. People in poverty are generally the most vulnerable to begin with.

Curbing people's ability to leverage poverty traps for profit in a capitalist system would reduce how many people get stuck in them.

In general, government legislation can and does directly affect poverty rates as well as who is most likely to be affected.

People will argue about the effectiveness and intent of government actions to ameliorate/impose poverty. Claiming that it is outside of a government's influence is nonsense.

alexanderdmitri··on Do climate models predict extreme weather?
So in this case the modeler just needs to tell the model to (1) accurately calculate the degree to which the Earth's climate will change in the next few decades and (2) give a comprehensive global forecast of the accompanying extreme weather events.
alexanderdmitri··on The Coverage of Theranos Is Utter Bullshit (2015)
I'm probably more of a whisky & mescaline socialist myself, but this tweet seems to be a pretty vapid and vague summary of the year from a journalist.

Maybe it's a problem with Twitter as a medium in general? People over analyze these snippets and ultimately derive whatever they want to. Suddenly things like kidnapping, brutal rape and children dying of malaria start coming up and that's intense.

The weirdest thing is seeing Twitter appear in more and more journalism. BBC constantly references tweets in it's articles[0], I'm not sure why. A good tweet says nothing, suggests everything, gets people emotional and puts isolated individuals into a mob mentality. It's like a retirement home for pregnant mares.

I also had something about propaganda versus journalism, but I'm kinda tripping out here and losing my threads. John could probably say this better than me. Brb.

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59750154

alexanderdmitri··on 2021 Letter
This is a fairly ridiculous thing to bring up right now.
alexanderdmitri··on Smart Homes Alter Human Behavior
Search for a digital thermostat with hysteresis options to solve this problem.
alexanderdmitri··on Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful
Here's a write-up from Seattle's government about the root causes of homelessness in the city: https://www.seattle.gov/homelessness/the-roots-of-the-crisis

This is a take on the issue by the Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/why-are-p...

alexanderdmitri··on Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful
If the inherent value is solipsistic and self-justifying, then it is more likely to be detrimental to the overall system. This would make it a net negative.
alexanderdmitri··on Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful
I think this very good point. There is an undeniably good vibe to it. Maybe something akin to a general faith?
alexanderdmitri··on Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful
Thankfulness as an end is not necessarily valuable or positive. I think the associated feeling does little to the make the world a better place, I put it in the same category as remorse.

Just as remorse should lead to rectifying action, thankfulness should lead to reciprocal action to provide objective value.

What's interesting is the impetus between internal perception and outward action both share is a sense of indebtedness. Thankfulness becomes a passive accumulation of debt in this lens, whereas remorse casts our hero in a more active role.

I think also actions spawned from thankfulness will be more comedic [dynamic] in nature and whereas those from remorse will tend toward the tragic [static]. The efficacy of either approach will reflect the constraints of the systems they are acting within and how well conceived the individual's solution is.

Not sure where I'm going with this. Spitballing, not preaching ...

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