contrarian1234

your complete lack of self awareness is annoying but also amusing :)

wow thats absolutely tiny. thanks for the detailed info. very interesting :))

given your inability to engage with an opposing point of view, youre definitely not a bot. So ill take your ad hominem as praise

> It isn't "my scenario". These are real cases

maybe English isnt your native language, but "scenario" doesnt require the situation to be not real

> Nothing in there about "likeability" or "we let her off because she had nice tits"

We have no way to know if likeability played in to it. When rules are bendable then they are bent to the likeable and attractive. My example of a traffic stop is analogous and more directly relatable

> This is how the law has always worked, and if you've thought otherwise then consider you've been living under this "insane system" for your entire life

You seem to have some reading comprehension issues.. I never suggested its not currently working that way and i never suggested the current situation is not insane. If you think the current system is sane and great then thats your opinion

Everyone i know whos had to deal with the US legal system has only related horror stories

The parent comment present a scenario where the law is ignored b/c the judge decides for himself it shouldn't apply. I'm pointing out that this kind of approach is fundamentally unjust and wrong.

"And sure you can say the laws should be written better, but so long as the laws are written by humans that will simply not be the case"

The obvious solution is dismissed

Sorry but that seems like an insane system where whole classes of actions effectively are illegal but probably okay if you're likeable. In your scenario the obvious solution is to amend the law and pardon people convinced under it. B/c what really happens is that if you have a pretty face and big tits you get out of speeding tickets b/c "gosh well the law wasn't intended for nice people like you"

Is it just for leisure or commercial traffic?

it's a lot smaller than I imagined. I can't picture a river barge fitting in it, but it's hard to tell the scale

Right now is an AI goldrush. They can get crazy lucrative investments and lock in amazing deals. In a decade the Chinese tech will catch up and the AI boom will slow down and the Taiwanese will have to coast on what they have. They have to capitalize on this moment as much as they can b/c it's not going to last long. Things are going to get much tougher very soon

Making a new plane is obviously a major effort. Updating avionics/engine also seems extremely complex. However, the alternative I was suggesting is just using a commercial passenger plane (like a private jet someone else suggested)

I mean I think people have been complaining about the KC-135 being too old for a very long time, and from what I heard the replacement was urgently needed. At least there I can see how there is really no good alternative - it's a very specialized plane. Here they just need a plane that can fly high and is easy to modify with new equipment. It feels like there should be plenty of other candidates. However, the other reply seems to imply it's not all that expensive to maintain

Why is such an ancient plane still being used? Lack of funding to use something newer? Or it has some capability that can't be replicated?

I would imagine it's incredibly expensive to maintain. Are they machining their own engine parts?

I think the real problem is that the government is not structured in an accountable way and things like DOGE can happen. These things basically don't happen in other democracies. The Japanese don't all have assault rifles in their basement b/c they're waiting for the day the Diet is going to harvest their data to oppress them

Are we supposed to structure out society so we're safer in the case that the Chinese invade and use all our institutions against us? There is a risk-benefit tradeoff to make. Crippling society and institutions in preparation for an a worst-case scenario future hypothetical is not sensible. To get things done you operate from the standpoint that the democratic government is responsive to the desires of the people. The adversarial perspective is self sabotaging

The Rights are not intended as preemptive. You don't have a right to free speech b/c otherwise maybe the government regulation of speech will get out of hand. You have it because it's espoused as a fundamental right. Same with separation of church and state. It's like "Well maybe a future evil government will regulate the church poorly, so lets ban it completely". It's just seen as an area the government shouldn't delve in entirely.

Collecting information about people doesn't really fit the same mold. It's not sensible to remove that function entirely. It's not a right. And it's not sensible to structure things with the expectation the future government will be evil

maybe naiive but isnt this what "comments" in journals are for?

theyre usually published with a response by the authors

yeah, this is exactly it. all the arguments kind of boil down to

"well how about if the government does illegal or evil stuff?"

its very similar to arguments about the second ammendment. But laws and rules shouldnt be structured around expecting a future moment where the government isnt serving the people. At that moment the rules already dont matter

Have the recipient server be owned by a priest and API metadata that says it's a confession

Are you trying to say there is a parallel in that the right voices read the tea leaves correctly and knew that Russia was going to be a crazy rogue state? And that similarly, there are signs China is going to get super belligerent in the future?

I would first say that what happened with Russia, at least to me, did not seem inevitable even with hindsight. I don't think Romney had some keen foresight - more like a lucky guess.

I also don't really see the same happening with China, though it's of course possible. A sudden economic downturn could trigger a need for an external enemy and a conflict.

But a military conflict between the US and China just seems like an absurd fantasy. It'd how you end up with a nuclear war and the death of millions. I don't think the Chinese secretly want this in the long run. They want peace and more business and more wealth

Russia is not an active economic rival. If they weren't actively attacking neighbors and interfere with governments around the world they would be basically irrelevant. I think the situation is radically different from China. Russia seems to have intentionally positioned themselves as enemies b.c it's part of their identity and the government's attempt to retain some relevance on the international stage

Okay they have a small limited amount of border disputes that are wrapped up in their nationalism. But they're not instigating coupe-detats is other countries to get favorable regimes, or significantly militarily meddling in other regions of the world to get favorable outcomes.

I'd say on the whole, given their size, military strength and economic connections, they've been remarkably restrained - borderline isolationist - when it comes to international interference. I don't see how they're a danger to democracy outside of their own borders - with the exception of maybe troll farms that are trying to shape cultural narratives

China as the enemy is a fabricated narrative, bc culturally we seem to have a need to have another cold war, we need a "bad guy"

in reality theyre just economic rivals. But then again so are the EU.

in terms of zone of political influence the competition isnt anything crazy (except for the poor taiwanese caught in the middle) and there is no clash of political ideaologies

In my experience Chinese in China don't typically see the US as an enemy. Its a weird framing for them

Ah okay, thanks for explaining it! Just based on the name, journal and metadata it seemed like a research paper.. and I was honestly a bit surprised. But I obviously don't publish law research :))

From what you're saying it seems that for an insider this is clear. I guess that makes more sense then

Just from reading the abstract, it feels like the authors didn't even attempt at trying to be objective. It hard to take what they're saying seriously when the language is so loaded and full of judgments. The kind of language you'd expect in an Op-Ed and not a research paper

That's simply not true. People are compensated generously for land that is seized. I have friends that have had it happen, and you get a lot more money than if you were to sell the property - so it's a bit like winning the lottery. The amount of room for appeal is dictated by the nature of the seizure and the government "level". (ie if it's a national interest project you have little recourse, but if it's the city government then it's likely different)

i feel the fact coal is so often considered separately from oil and gas to be very suspicious. Cant help but feel demonizing coal is plays into the interests of petro states.

Obviously we should be moving to green energy, but coal provides energy independence and doesnt fund horrid regimes..

a Coal plant seems way better for world peace than LNG plant

the cost savings could be put to developing green energy faster

curious what you mean. i dont actually take any side on the original question. i dont really know enough to have an informed opinion - and im a bit skeptical one could prove anything given the confounding variables

but the idea that you cant even a-politically pose a question about biology - i dont really get the logic there. seems antiscientific

Most of my "wtf is going on" moments on Linux have to do with permissions. I loath the industry move to even more security. I want a more Emacs-like experience. Multiuser systems have become the exception and most people have a personal computer with one user. Dealing with evil apps is a loosing battle b/c the attack surface is too large.

I think the counter argument to more security is Distro Repos. When was the last time you apt-get'ed some software and had your documents stolen?

If you add blocks then you need to somehow communicate to the use when it's failing and that's hard... You see the shitshow that is Android security where apps have mysterious access to some directories and not others and it's impossible to understand what's going on. Maybe capabilities will work better, it's unclear to me.

Amazing, a whole article about a camera without a single photo from that camera

Oh really? I took the Flixbus from the Czech Republic and is stopped near the border and then after that it was train only. Maybe I ended up in a weird spot then! I just checked and there are indeed buses in-country. Strange that I somehow couldn't find any then

Thank you for the info!

Austria is the only European country I've been to that doesn't have cheap affordable intercity buses. Seemingly none at all. It was kind of strange... Does anyone know why?

The only options to get around was the expensive train system - and anyone I asked was bewildered why I would want to take a bus.. Maybe next time I should look in to carpooling or some other options. How do low income people get around typically? I need to go to attend a conference, but it's not cheap coming from Asia

EDIT: Seems I was wrong! Sorry. There are buses, (maybe fewer than other countries?)