ardy42

> Coffee consumption was actually one of the questions that I was asked when my therapist first suspected that I had ADHD. I used to drink 5+ cups per day (especially workdays) while feeling fairly little effect from it.

Did you get a big boost when you first started with it that reduced as you developed tolerance with habitual use?

I've always been pretty careful with caffeine consumption in order to avoid tolerance, because I didn't want to get into a state where all it did was boost me back to my "normal" (i.e. feeling crappy until I got my coffee, and having to use increasing amounts to get past my baseline).

I'm like the OP. The distinction I make is:

1) A tough project can be engrossing. Getting started is always tough, but after that it's relatively easy to keep up momentum.

2) Menial tasks are not engrossing and are usually quick, so they require a level of attention control to stay focused on them that I'm just not capable of. It's like "getting started" over and over.

The OP mainly concerns the First Amendment, but the recent controversies around lying and free speech have not involved government attempts to stifle lies.

IMO, it's not possible for there to be a workable legal ban against lying in general; the "collateral damage" would be too great. Through there are are very many cases where specific kinds of lies could be made illegal. HOWEVER, for free speech to work, I think it's supremely important for everyone in society to do whatever they can to suppress lies, liars, and falsehoods. If that's not done, at best, the public square will degrade to being little more than a useless Library of Babel [1]. Unfortunately, a lot of people nowadays can't seem to tell the difference between a dissenting perspective and a lie, and that position ultimately discredits free speech.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel; "In any case, a library containing all possible books, arranged at random, might as well be a library containing zero books, as any true information would be buried in, and rendered indistinguishable from, all possible forms of false information..."

> Worth noting even its creators say JCL is the worst language ever invented.

I don't dispute that, but I'd kinda like to hear the specifics of their reasoning.

I've never actually used JCL, but I'm willing to cut it a little slack because, IIRC, it literally started in the 60s as a way to specify job-execution information on a punched cards for batch processing systems that had as little as 8K of memory. What I've read about very early personal computers with similar amounts of memory makes me think it requires serious compromises to implement anything that actually works on such a system.

> As long as stuff doesn't fade for 50 years, are artists bothered? After you're dead, nobody is going to come and complain at you for using a non-durable choice of pigment.

I'm sure many artists aren't creating for wholly hedonistic reasons, and instead want to create things that will endure.

> Based on the facebook video, it's not as strongly tinting as either ultramarine or cobalt blue, and it's close enough to cobalt blue in hue that I don't see what the point is unless it's less expensive than what is traditionally one of the most expensive pigments on a palette.

According to the OP:

> Blue pigments, which date back 6,000 years, have been traditionally toxic and prone to fading. That’s no longer the case with YInMn, which reflects heat and absorbs UV radiation, making it cooler and more durable than pigments like cobalt blue.

> “The fact that this pigment was synthesized at such high temperatures signaled that this new compound was extremely stable, a property long sought in a blue pigment,” Subramanian said in a study about the compound.

> An honest question from someone who hasn't used Windows since the early 2010s: as developers, what's the draw?

Corporate standards? Also, if you're in enterprise land, there could be some weird tool you need to use (or is superior to whatever you can get on Linux) that forces/encourages you to use Windows.

Also, there may be some weird little ergonomics thing: I recently switched from Windows to a Mac at work. We use Outlook, and IMHO Mac Outlook sucks compared to the Windows version. It's just missing a bunch of useful little features that I got used to. I was originally planning on using Windows Outlook in a VM, but got thwarted by new policies set by our new desktop support vendor.

> * What purpose does the Jury serve in 2021? Made sense in the 18th century, doesn't now. Look at Oracle v Google, 12 totally qualified people made that decision (spoiler, they weren't)

I'm speculating, but I think the idea was to put a check on the authorities by placing the actual decision-making power in the people. I think that's a valid principle. Even if Oracle v Google was a bench trial (e.g. no jury), the judge would still probably have to be educated on the technical issues, just like a jury.

IIRC, technically a jury could even decide the law is BS and refuse to convict for that reason alone, but the system puts up a lot of roadblocks to reduce the change of that happening (e.g. the defense counsel can't argue for it or remind them of that option).

> * Why do such a mind numbingly high amount of public defender cases end in plea bargains, and why is the average time spent by a public defender on any given case in the order of _minutes_ in _any_ region of the wealthiest nation around?

Because public defenders are underpaid and overworked, and that's because it's an easier sell to the voters to raise taxes to hire police to lower crime than to raise taxes to hire public defenders for fairer government. There's also been a history of "tough on crime" rhetoric/attitudes that makes it even more difficult. Also: the suspects on crime shows are almost always actually guilty (whether successfully convicted or now), which creates the impression that it's the job of defense lawyers to help the guilty go free.

> * What's up with private prisons, and how can they argue they don't have a negative impact on recidivism?

I'm not sure who's arguing this, but my guess it's probably someone who benefiting from that industry. My vague recollection was that private prisons were sold as a cost-saving measure, like most privatization schemes.

> Or maybe governments don't always follow the law. That's a possibility too.

It is, but I think it's way more common for people to be broadly ignorant of the law and legal concepts except a few little bits about some rights that they believe very strongly and rigidly.

It's sort of like software requirements: things usually seem simplest at the beginning, when you know the least. Then you learn more and the requirements get complicated match the actual needs. Then sometimes you get some cowboy who comes in later, makes a flash judgement on little understanding that things should be simpler, and then either breaks everything or re-discovers the lessons you already figured out.

>> It's a private company. They can do that if they want.

> What I find more interesting is that when that same argument is used in other situations, such a small businesses deciding to open during the lockdown, it is routinely down voted and shouted down.

The key concept is that it would be a violation of Facebook's First Amendment rights to forbid them from banning their users (i.e. force them to carry their messages). It would be compelled speech/compelled association.

Your example about businesses defying covid lockdowns is a completely different thing. Being a private company is not a license to do whatever you want: Facebook still has to comply with the law, as do those businesses.

If you're looking for something that looks like a contradiction, the one you're looking for is antidescrimination law: why can Facebook ban users of type X because it's a private company, but it's illegal for a wedding cake maker to refuse customers of type Y? If you're looking at it simply as a legalistic First Amendment thing, the situations look they should be the same. If they're not, it's because it's not a simple First Amendment thing, and other principles and context have to be balanced with First Amendment principles.

> There is no "the left". This is a shibboleth that you have created.

He did use the "the left" in a kind of shibboleth-y way, but I think you actually mean "straw man" here.

> However... I've noticed a difference between HN and the likes of Facebook or Twitter. As far as I can tell, HN mods focus more on how you say something rather than what you say. If you're civil, respectful, and on-topic you're seemingly allowed to present just about any idea.

> Meanwhile, most other social media platforms seem content to let other people be complete pricks to each other as long as they don't present any ideas which the platform have decided are wrong or "dangerous".

I don't think there's as much to this observation as it seems. Firstly, HN is a different site than Facebook, which means it has a different userbase with different moderation problems. It's not like people are civilly and respectfully planning insurrections here, and if they were, the moderation would probably shift to stopping those "wrong or 'dangerous'" things. Also, the kinds of dis- and mis-information the the major social networks are fighting hasn't gotten much of a foothold on HN, and is often moderated away when it shows up.

Secondly, to your earlier point: HN has human moderators who can (more or less) keep up. While Facebook has human moderators too, there aren't enough of them to keep up, so it relies heavily on automation and crowdsourcing. They don't have the capacity to pay attention to "how you say it," even if they wanted to.

It's sort of like day care: if you have one teacher and ten students, the teacher is doing a good job if each student gets a lot of high-quality personalized attention; if you have one teacher and fifty students, the teacher is doing a good job if she manages to just barely keep them from hurting themselves.

> It’s not a far left paper, centrist at most. It’s not like they’re calling for workers to seize the means of production.

In this case, I'm sure pretty sure "far left" has nothing to do with policy, and actually translates to something like "not loyal Republican" or "not seeking to spare Republicans embarrassment."

It's sort of like how RINO has come to mean "disloyal to Donald Trump," and gets applies to people who'd score 100% conservative on any ideological test.

> Far left paper repackages DNC talking points into a hit piece about someone's facebook posts 3-years ago and pretends it's news.

Obviously you affiliate with Republicans (as did I until relatively recently). Why do you feel the need to defend someone who discredits your group by openly believing bonkers things?

Also, how effective do you think your tactic of "label-outgroup and dismiss" is? It's not persuasive at all except to those already persuaded.

It looks like it's ~2.75 stars now.

> Hi, I made it change every minute, instead of every 10 minutes. Please refresh to see the changes.

Shouldn't that be configurable? It seems like "catches your attention very frequently like a distraction" is actually not the right behavior for this. Seems like the goal should be to call attention to itself just enough so the notes aren't forgotten and are brought to mind to be started during a distracted moment.

I like the idea, but probably won't use it because it's not a desktop app. Some random ideas:

1. Color changing is a good idea. Kinda skeptical about the font mattering much.

2. Moving location is probably a good idea.

3. Probably should pop itself up occasionally to be in front of the active window.

4. Probably should avoid popping up in front of "work apps" (e.g. an IDE, Excel) and pop up more frequently in front of "distraction apps" (e.g. web browser).

5. Steer users towards one thing per note.

6. Occasionally in specific situations (e.g. long time with browser active), the pop up should be unclosable for a short time.

> 1) The Kenosha shooting was self defense.

We'll see about that when he goes to trial.

> And if you arbitrarily lump things together, you can probably find an arbitrary number of victims.

Which is what you're doing. Why arbitrarily lump together BLM and looters, when it could make more sense to consider them different groups that happen to be in the same area reacting in their own ways to the same circumstances?

> 3) That's not CHAZ cooperating with authorities, but authorities cooperating with CHAZ. Just because "your people" welcomed the secession, doesn't make it any more democratic.

The point is it's not a succession if you continue to recognize the government by calling on it to reform.

> Anyway, let's end here. There really is no point. It is just always interesting how warped people's perceptions can be.

Yep.

> Apparently the dividing line between pro- and anti-gun isn't left versus right, but pro- versus anti- state-monopoly-on-force. If you think it's a good thing for only cops and the military to have guns, you probably think that the government tends to be a pretty good deal. If you think they should be balanced by an armed populace, you probably think that it tends to be an oppressive force.

I'm guessing there's another factor: belief in the stability (and friendliness) of the status quo. If you believe "the cops and the military" will always be on your side (whether through genuine belief or lack of imagination), then I think you'll be more receptive to gun control. If you don't take that as a given, then you'll be less receptive.

Personally, I think the election of Donald Trump should cause Democrats and cultural liberals to question their assumptions about gun control. It's not inconceivable to me that a right-wing authoritarian leader could tip the police and military towards being politicized forces with a little finesse (take an small existing bias, expand it through controversial actions around "the line" to trigger principled resignations, then cement control through purges and ideological recruitment). Add to that the fact that right-wing civilians are better armed and have proven to be receptive to a cult-of-personality. Such a leader could potentially win a civil war without firing a shot.

America was lucky Trump wasn't a "hide your strength and bide your time," kind of leader.

> 1) Because there was just a single "capitol incident", and several BLM riots.

No, there wasn't just a single incident. Just to give some examples off the top of my head: large groups of III%ers participated in both the Capitol Attack and Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and the BLM counter-protests were arguably part of the same phenomenon (and one of them shot three people in Kenosha).

> 2) So you seriously believe all violence at BLM riots was solely because of false flag white supremacists? Really?

That's a sloppy reading of what I said. I merely pointed out a fact that makes attribution of violence that occurred at the protests difficult.

> 3) Bullshit. Riots are not "democratic process" either - it's people rejecting the established laws (like property rights) and proceeding to do their own thing. I mean they installed an "autonomous zone", how is that not an attack on democracy?

It's pretty obvious that it wasn't an "attack on democracy" because they made reform demands to elected officials and were cooperating with the government:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/seattle-autonomous-zon...

> The protest zone has increasingly functioned with the tacit blessing of the city. Harold Scoggins, the fire chief, was there on Wednesday, chatting with protesters, helping set up a call with the Police Department and making sure the area had portable toilets and sanitation services....

> The demonstrators have also been trying to figure it out, with various factions voicing different priorities. A list of three demands was posted prominently on a wall: one, defund the Police Department; two, fund community health; and three, drop all criminal charges against protesters.

In comparison, the capitol attackers setup a gallows and were chanting things like "Hang Mike Pence," because he wouldn't unconstitutionally override the election (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hang-mike-pence-chant-capi..., https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/01/15/mike-pence-cl...). The sloppy false equivalences to deflect away from that are getting old.

> The art of dictatorship is strange, and requires much better understanding than just "evil takes over private ownership".

Also, dictators have no need to own anything (at least domestically). They already have the power, so what do they gain by "owning" something they already control? IMHO, private property/ownership is really only a useful concept when you have to allocate control among legally-equal(ish) peers.

I think a lot of people really only understand their own place in their own society, and a lot of time they end up just projecting that onto some other situation when it doesn't really apply.

> Anyone can buy a domain and redirect it anywhere. This is an extremely embarrassing comment for the level of discussion I expected from HN.

Exactly. Has everyone forgotten whitehouse.com? In the 90s it was a porn site.

> Are you serious? BLM murdered an 8 year old black girl in atlanta

You're claiming BLM is about murdering black kids? Are you serious?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/atlanta-mayor-8-year-o...

As someone who considered himself to be on the right until relatively recently, I'm pretty disturbed by how it seems to have rejected reason in favor of sloppy free association.

> The capital riots were patriots who have been upset that the corrupt courts refused to allow anybody to present evidence of fraud when there is more than enough out there to show

The allegations of fraud were laughed out of court, even by Republican judges, because they had no merit whatsoever. They were little more than expressions of an incompetent demagogue's psychological insecurity.

> 12-19 people have died due to BLM "protests", and over 700 officers injured. So BLM riots have had a worse impact.

Your statement is dense with issues:

1. You're comparing a single "protest" to a protest movement. Also, where did you get a figure like "12-19"?

2. There are documented and confirmed cases of capitol-riot-type people using the BLM protests as cover for violence (e.g. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/illinois-man-accused-o... and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/23/texas-boogaloo...). The attempts to blame the capital riots on "antifa" are groundless.

3. The capitol rioters deliberately struck at the democratic process itself (e.g. process of conducting a fair election) because they rejected the results of that process, which is a far more serious thing than any traditional protest, no matter how violent.

>>> But what would someone get out of paying ppl to dislike whitehouse videos ?

>> Propaganda.

> But how do you know this is happening for this video though?

It's still the answer to the question you asked, whether it's actually happening or not.

> It seems obvious there would be plenty of "legitimate" dislikes coming, as probably a lot of people who followed this YouTube channel in the past 4 years were Trump supporters, and now the channel features Biden. Trump supporters still subscribed would dislike this content. I wonder if the same happened at the last transition.

I don't know about YouTube, but I've read that the 2017 transition and the 2021 transitions were different on Twitter:

2017: Obama's institutional twitter accounts (e.g. @POTUS) were archived, but Trump inherited the followers in his new @POTUS account.

2021: Trump's @POTUS was archived, but Biden's new @POTUS didn't inherit Trump's (and Obama's) followers. He had to start from scratch.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/technology/biden-white-ho...

> But what would someone get out of paying ppl to dislike whitehouse videos ?

Propaganda.

>> people who do nothing but dislike videos

>> dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes

> this is not spam. Also how you think youtube knows if a certain user is disliking because they read a social media post ?

I believe Reddit calls similar activity "brigading," and it's against the rules there.

> As a Canadian engineer, I've always found what exactly a UK engineer is somewhat murky. Growing up, if someone told me their father was an engineer I would never think working class. I've lived in Germany too and having an engineering degree was a big deal there, so I know it isn't a European thing, well at least pre-Brexit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer#UK:

> In the UK, "engineering" has more recently been erroneously styled as an industrial sector consisting of employers and employees loosely termed "engineers" who include tradespeople. However, knowledgeable practitioners reserve the term "engineer" to describe a university-educated professional of ingenuity represented by the Chartered (or Incorporated) Engineer qualifications.[23] A large proportion of the UK public incorrectly thinks of "engineers" as skilled tradespeople or even semi-skilled tradespeople with a high school education. Also, many UK skilled and semi-skilled tradespeople falsely style themselves as "engineers". This has created confusion in the eyes of some members of the public in understanding what professional engineers actually do, from fixing car engines, television sets and refrigerators (technicians, handymen) to designing and managing the development of aircraft, spacecraft, power stations, infrastructure and other complex technological systems (engineers).[citation needed]

It kinda sounds like "engineer" in UK usage encompasses might roles that I'd call "technicians" as an American.

> The licence to attend provided by Fisher’s approach feels liberating – particularly for millennials whose inability to imagine alternatives to neoliberalism arises in part from their having never known anything else. Fisher’s writing may resonate with those who came of age in the thick of capitalist realism, and who, unlike Fisher’s generation, have no memory of social democracy, precisely because it theorises a loss they can’t remember or measure, but which they’ve nevertheless inherited.

This kind of reminds me of a concept I recall from The Great Transformation by Polanyi: that introduction of the modern market to societies elicited quite a bit of opposition from the first generations that experienced it, since they understood what they were losing because they remembered it. Later generations couldn't muster the same energy because they didn't know the loss.

> Could it be a message? Why to send from place to place a radio signal when we could set up a bunch of planets in an improbable/impossible regular configuration to be noticed from everywhere during a very long time frame?

Intuitively, for signalling purposes, setting up six planets in a weird orbital configuration to attract attention seems like it would take WAY more energy to do. Also, it tells you nothing about how to reply to the hail.

Though I could see it as some kind of solar system-sized monument.