1,098 karma · joined June 16, 2012
The value of the lottery ticket to me is a function of the cost, odds, timing and interest I have in the destination.
If the odds of one trailhead are 1000x lower than another one that is comparable across the other variables then I'm needlessly overpaying, and Booze Allen pockets that inefficiency.
Additionally, these lotteries usually have a second level of rules that impact your odds. For example, day of week or starting trailhead. I would gladly shift dates / routes and apply for different lotteries, but I have little basis to make those decisions on.
You will not persuade hardcore preservationists in California by listing out the economic/quality of life benefits of controlled burns. They (and I am generalizing) have a deep passion for returning nature to its natural state.
The key to changing preservationists minds is not to say "there are many benefits to controlled burns (for humans)" but rather, "the state we are creating in forests without burns is not natural."
If my recollection serves correctly they were unable to get arrive at a good enough level of specificity to actually feel comfortable predicting an earthquake.
These cosmic ray events happened with enough regularity (and didn't result in earthquakes) that there was a legitimate concern about creating paranoia.
Many readers feel cognitive dissonance from this book: there’s so much detail, it must add up to some moral lesson. You’ll hear people say, “Blood Meridian is an amazing book, but I don’t understand it.”
They’re still trying to apply a moral label to the story and can’t find one. To quote The Judge, “Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.”
McCarthy’s message in Blood Meridian may be that we see a higher fidelity picture of the old west if we don’t attempt to fit events into a moral arc. Still worth discussing, but we must abandon good vs. evil as a framework if we want a glimpse at the truth of what happened.
But after wracking your brain trying to decrypt the message, you realize that it just says there is no greater meaning to the violence of the book. It is just people doing things on a vast plain.
It's almost as though McCarthy is saying to us, "See? You're still looking for a deeper meaning that does not exist."
The man digging holes is a pioneer. McCarthy isn't really clear on what he does; intentionally so. He might be digging fence holes, making campfires, building railroad tracks – it doesn't really matter.
The wanderers are the settlers following the pioneer westward. They appear to be coordinated by some force, like the pieces of a clock. This is arguably the "go west" attitude of manifest destiny.
"...they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner reality" is McCarthy's true criticism of manifest destiny. Retrospectively, we glorify settlement of the west and slot it into a clean narrative or progress. But in its time, the expansion was chaotic, violent and devoid of morals. People were just walking hole-to-hole for the sake of finding the next hole.
Some wanderers collect bones and some don't. Perhaps McCarthy means that some wanderers kill, but we don't know. From McCarthy's nihilistic viewpoint it doesn't matter because the westward expansion is moral-less so killing someone isn't different from collecting bones on the ground.
This contrasts with the moral good vs. evil narrative usually applied to the old west (see anything written on cowboys vs. indians, sheriff vs. bandits, etc.) McCarthy portrays the old west outside of a moral framework. Horrific violence happens and there's no explanation or justification.
The root cause is economic decoupling between Russia, China, and the U.S.
If you operate a mobile app, this allows you to force a data packet over the device’s SIM that the carrier can validate. Platforms like Twilio/Boku have worked with the carriers to provide an API for this.
SMS is completely removed from the process and SMS pumping becomes a non issue.
Another option that could be mentioned in the article is using WhatsApp for OTP delivery. It’s the de facto messaging app in many countries with scketchy carriers, precisely because people don’t enjoy paying 5 cents per SMS.
You could do a lot of travel with a 5-7k budget per month.
There are a ton of variables- agree more analysis is needed.
We were staying in a super touristy area during peak season, and the last minute hotel cost us $2000+ more than we had budgeted for the trip.
The host was completely non-responsive and our polite but negative review was removed by AirBnb. None of us have used AirBnb since.
Really hope the policymakers are able to find a path forward here.
People are really into weird shoes right now (see pretty much all of sneakerhead culture). I could see this taking off if partnered with the right influencer and offered at about $500-$600.
On Chinese knockoffs: yes, this is a danger with nearly any product made today. If they achieve brand prominence then the risk will be mitigated. Their apparent moat seems to be making walking feel natural. This may be temporarily difficult to reverse engineer and give them some lead time.
Developers are somewhat different from the general population in that we like to read documentation rather than going to a person for help. But for almost everyone else having someone to answer a question immediately is the preferred experience.