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alsaaro

223 karma · joined September 20, 2021

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alsaaro··on Why Giving Money to Africa Makes it Poor [video][15 mins]
How universal is this argument; giving money to politically powerless groups (19th century Irish, homeless people, jobless people during the depression) somehow makes them poorer, seemingly this argument never applies to the already powerful or wealthy.

"Too much money and you lose your initiative, thereby making you poorer in the long run." Said nobody, ever.

alsaaro··on CIA used "long-range quantum magnetometry" called "Ghost Murmur" in Iran
Same.

But perhaps the underlying technology is a superconducting SQUID.

The ability to detect a heartbeat from distance is far fetched though.

alsaaro··on The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961-1964)
I saw this and what makes this particularly pernicious that you assume it was a fan applying ai voice to his authentic words, but you don't know.

There is also an ai slop channel featuring Leonard Susskind.

alsaaro··on How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack
Even if true this is irrelevant, the first amendment is agnostic to truth or good propriety.
alsaaro··on How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack
Kamala Harris is a progressive, who by certain objective measures, was the most left senator, even further left than Sanders. Of course in the general election she moved to the center, as did Trump. Kamala lost all seven swing states.

The democrats should move to 90's style triangulation, it works.

alsaaro··on Emerging Reasoning with Reinforcement Learning
You mean deep seek r1 generated this?

With what prompt?

alsaaro··on Palmer Luckey: Every country needs a 'warrior class' to enact violence on others
A classless society that never aspired to have or need a warrior class, to a society that inexplicably needs a "warrior class" that presumably answers to the moneyed capital class alone.
alsaaro··on Transferring energy from nitrogen to argon enables 2-way cascaded lasing in air
Or sci fi holograms?
alsaaro··on Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
The Seal Team 6 example is batted around because it is specifically cited by Trump's legal counsel as an official act that isn't bound by law -- the conservative Supreme Court has endorsed this.
alsaaro··on Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
Curious how an ostensibly "conservative" court can ignore the concept of enumerated powers, the constitution clearly does not grant immunity to the President, so the conservative court invents immunity when none is explicitly granted.

Indeed, the concept of immunity is recognized in the American constitution for legislators in a limited way, so this isn't an oversight by the framers corrected by Robert's conservative majority, rather the lack of immunity for the executive is a feature and not a bug of our constitution, and all republican forms of government.

Ironically the American president now has more power than the King of England, George the III, at the time of the American independence. King George had to follow the laws of Parliament, as did all Kings of England since the passage of Magna Carta some 500+ years prior.

As of today our President no longer has to obey the Constitution or the law so long as the act is deemed "official" by the conservative majority.

alsaaro··on Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest
I wonder if covid infections, perhaps in rare cases the vaccines themselves, is to blame for the post-pandemic phenomena of ADHD medication shortages, the crime wave, school discipline (lack of), the so-called college enrollment crises (precipitous decline), and record low OECD test scores.All of these can be explained by dopamine dysregulation.
alsaaro··on Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99
Maybe.

A better explanation for the slowness of the national laboratories is they their word will be taken more definitively on this issue than anyone else.

They are the ones with reputations and have to answer to critics in the private sector, amateur sector, and in Congress.

I think their slowness is an encouraging sign, it means LK99 isn't easily debunked.

alsaaro··on Some remarks on possible superconductivity of composition Pb9CuP6O25
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1685088625187495936.html

The most immediate and interesting are improvements to generators (35%) and SQUIDS.

alsaaro··on The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
They claim to have observed the Meisner effect, quantum locking unique to superconductors, a pretty big signal, so more likely fraud than a mistake.
alsaaro··on The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
The critical temperature (Tc) >= 400 K or about 127 C, so apparently this material requires relatively high heat to reach superconductivity.

This is unusual, superconductivity is a low temperature phenomenon. Recently though, other researches have claimed room temperature superconductivity at high pressures, but low temperatures.

alsaaro··on Supreme Court Rejects Student Loan Forgiveness Plan
The Republican Supreme Court cited a new conservative legal doctrine know as the "major questions doctrine" to issue this ruling.

Biden's own words aren't relevant.

alsaaro··on Supreme Court Rejects Student Loan Forgiveness Plan
The Republican Supreme Court ruled against this because it is not simpatico with their pollical beliefs.

The statutory authority for Biden's actions is there, that doesn't matter because black-letter law and jurisprudence don't matter anymore, only conservative political outcomes.

alsaaro··on Supreme Court Rejects Student Loan Forgiveness Plan
Biden's legal justification for student debt forgiveness was the 2003 Hero's Act, which allowed the Secretary of Education to discharge student loans debt in times of national emergency (like a Pandemic).

Trump cited this enabling law when he halted student loan payments.

The Supreme Court, invented a new legal theory called the "major questions doctrine" they self-cited as justification to end this policy. The Supreme Court is not a King either, though clearly they want to be.

alsaaro··on Supreme Court Rejects Student Loan Forgiveness Plan
The enabling law for this policy was the 2003 HERO's Act, which has been used prior to Biden's student loan forgiveness plan to modify loan conditions.

So this policy was approved by Congress.

alsaaro··on Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions
China uses an ethnic quota system for underrepresented minorities for university admissions, just like India and the United States (until today).
alsaaro··on Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions
There was hasn't been a "prior Democratic balance of SCOTUS" the SCOTUS has been firmly conservative since Rehnquist (1986) and probably before that. What is notable about this Robert's Court, is that they have overturned rulings affirmed by other conservative courts and even their own recent rulings!

Almost as if the Robert's court concluded there is no point in being powerful if you can't rule, even though ruling is beyond the scope of all courts.

As for Roe V. Wade being codified, this was a moot point at the time because you had a Constitutional right to an abortion -- your right to an abortion was codified in the Constitution, a law would have been redundant.

alsaaro··on Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions
Remember the Supreme Court upheld the legality of affirmative action in 2016 in Fisher v. UT-Austin, and two lower courts upheld the legality of affirmative action in this particular decision.

What changed is the make-up of the court; otherwise, apparently affirmative action's unconstitutionality was just realized like a revelation from God and every previous court (federal and Supreme) was wrong.

Racial rancor, and racism in general -- anti black racism in particular -- has probably increased since 2003; at least in the public sphere - hopefully this ruling is not a part of that milieu.

alsaaro··on Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions
Judicial review has upheld the constitutionality of affirmative action policies for 40+ years, what changed is the composition of the Supreme Court and its related willingness to legislate from the bench -- abandoning stare decisis and judicial restraint.

We saw this with Roe last year.

alsaaro··on The U.S. added 339,000 jobs last month
Bad news for the ever impending recession.
alsaaro··on XTS-210 25hp rotary engine; 1/5th size/weight of diesel piston engines
Why did it take them nearly 30 million in grants and 20 years to just now speak about delivering a prototype next year.

Engines can be prototyped on the time scale of months not decades.

Now they are soliciting the public to "invest" in their business.

alsaaro··on Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
Remember John Edwards, former Democratic nominee for vice-President, was essentially indicted for the same thing Trump is now, that is using political contributions as hush money. Edwards was facing 30 years for all the charges arraigned against him.

We still don't know the specifics or the extent of Trump's legal issues, as the Grand jury is still ongoing for this case and others.

alsaaro··on Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
Remember, a Grand Jury indicted John Edwards, a vice-Presidential candidate, for essentially the same thing Trump is being accused of -- that is using campaign funds to hide an affair.

Prior to Edward's indictment he was thought be the future of the democratic party, if Edwards was convicted on all counts he faced up the 30 years in prison, he beat the charges though -- a rarity in federal prosecutions.

So there is precedent for indictments for this particular crime, not that this should matter, in a republic everyone is subject to the same law and jurisprudence.

alsaaro··on More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships
As someone who has worked two of the most intensive blue collar jobs, people should be wary of romanticizing blue collar work.

Blue collar workers are expected to really work at their jobs. White collar workers can chill if there is no work to be done, or be sent home early with pay, or take a relaxation day and just browse the internet and listen to podcasts. They have perks, you see white collar workers leaving work early to attend baseball games and do fun activities with their colleagues.

Indeed, some white collar workers are so "underworked" they can literally work multiple full time remote jobs. Blue collar guys can't work remote, so expect to pay for child care and endure the mourning commute.

Blue collar workers aren't necessarily paid based on merit, this is formally true if you work in a union-shop where promotions are primarily based on tenue; if non-union there may be no promotion path for most workers because management has a "fresh meat for the grinder" approach to entry level staffing.

From a social perspective people don't respect blue collar workers. Believe that nobody who writes think pieces praising blue collar workers wants their daughters dating a blue collar worker or wants their children becoming them.

alsaaro··on The Great Illyrian Revolt
There's an excellent lecture series available free on Prime called The Roman Empire
alsaaro··on Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners
Not to be too big picky, but why are the first few photos showing the heat pump with a perspective that implies a small dimensions, as if it were some portable boombox. Also, why do the photos look indoors?

What do you think of thermoacoustic heat pumps?

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