kingaillas

The Army Corps of Engineers is a thing... their civil works authority makes them the final authority on water management (changing river flow, dams, anything related to water management.) Not sure about supervolcanos though, couldn't find that on their website.

I am sure that a minimum of the US Geological Survey and ACE will be involved in any supervolcano remediation plan. And probably FEMA but hopefully they won't need to act. ;)

Not OP, but yep, my cards have been locked to the merchant.

I've only experienced this with Kickstarter and then a secondary payment collector (BackerKit, etc) where some extra charge had to be finalized, typically shipping or maybe I threw in some extra doodad, and then had it fail because that second charge wasn't technically the same merchant.

But this was fine and I was happy - working exactly as intended. I just created a new privacy card and updated payment.

Sure, but start right now solving a few problems from previous years.

You'll want to know how to open and read a file, parse input (generally line by line, splitting each line on spaces), get familiar with data structures such as the dictionary/hash map and how to use the OCaml version. Not that you'll be competing for the leaderboard; this is more about getting familiar with the typical things for solving each problem.

>Is there a dearth of skilled labor for building houses?

Yes - https://www.npr.org/2021/07/30/1022642064/planet-money-why-a...

In summary, the US has been underbuilding ever since the housing crisis, and this makes people avoid construction trades. Fixing it will take years.

You better not switch your keyboard layout to dvorak... 'ls' are both right pinky letters. ;)

That's a good video: humorous, informative, interesting.

>If was looking for solid working class / middle class job, I would be watching this video for tips!

You might want to watch more videos, move over to his youtube channel... because he quits trucking earlier this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8AnMzhZZE

The downsides caught up to him after ~3 years. He also worked his salary out to roughly $8/hr (see video for details) considering time spent "on the job".

So, perhaps this isn't the solid advertisement for the industry you were thinking it is.

Missing a /s tag? Isn't that the (International Brotherhood of) Teamsters?

> In the beginning nobody knew how dangerous the virus was, so risk management should have been much more strict.

That won't work. Right now we have a pretty good idea of how dangerous the virus is, and plenty of US citizens don't want to participate the risk management of wearing a mask or even vaccinating. Hell many governors are outright forbidding vaccine mandates. Those same people aren't going to go along with strict risk management when the risk is unknown.

It was earlier - the 1984 movie (Terminator) had the scene where he rips out the page from the phone book, looking for the Sarah Connors listed there. :)

Framework just started shipping their hardware, so perhaps all these mentions are people that have received their preorders (or read about people receiving their preorders). https://frame.work/

At my previous company, I was caught in a mass layoff (best I can estimate is it was ~10 employees at a site with ~200? It's been 12 years and my memory is fuzzy). The company was known for annual layoffs of a handful of people, and the typical timeframe for it was approaching.

Around 4 or so weeks before, I started receiving unusual interest in projects I was working on, as in my 2nd line manager (boss's boss) dropping by to make various inquiries - how's it going, remember to write up some documentation/process, do you think you'll get to the XYZ portions). It was unusual since my supervisor and I didn't talk about that during our one-on-one meetings - a more natural flow would be for boss's boss to follow up on issues I raised with my boss, or for him/her to relay their questions through my boss, not for him/her to inquire directly.

Second oddity was that weekend or the next weekend. I stopped by the office for a few hours Sat morning, and saw another even higher level manager, maybe my 3rd line manager (can't remember who reported on up etc). But I was previously a direct report of the 3rd line manager so it wasn't weird to say hi and chat. They asked what I was doing there on a weekend and if anybody specifically asked me to come in. Well no... at the time I thought it was a little odd to ask that.

Third odd sign was I put in a vacation request for Fri and Mon two weeks in advance, and it got denied. With the reason "you are scheduled for XYZ class on that Fri", and oh, I hadn't heard that class was coming or I was added to it. It was weird because typically they'd send email and ask who is interested in XYZ, we're thinking of bringing in a class, of these days which is good, etc. To find out you are in a class next week by denying a vacation request? That was weird. I asked around various coworkers and nobody else was scheduled for that class or even knew it was coming. Big red flag.

Final sign was the Tue before, boss emailed and said I could have Fri off after all. No mention of Mon off too, and no mention of class details the Tue before the class.

I figured out the layoff day moved to Thu so I would get Fri off anyway and of course I would have Mon off too (boss slipped up not mentioning it).

And sure enough, I get in Thu, I hear rumors that layoffs are occurring. After checking email and seeing nothing, I went up to the sales area (errand to run) and saw a few employees in tears while packing up. I return and my boss is looking for me, asking where I was, and oh we need to have a meeting right now. 2nd line manager is there and someone else I didn't recognize (i.e. the HR rep). Suspicions confirmed as I looked in from the hallway.

>Hey, why is it called the United Nations instead of the United States anyway? Oops, cause there already is a United States. But the UN is clearly an organization of States not Nations.

States are sovereign political entities; of course modern countries tend to have a federal state made of several constituent states (see: USA, Germany, etc) where each claims certain jurisdiction. In ancient times there were city-states like Athens, Sparta... and even in 18th century Europe cities like Venice were states (Republic of Venice).

Nations are people united by something they have in common. That could be shared history, language, culture, the geographic area they live in, or something more abstract like fandom of certain sports teams or other hobbies.

There is considerable overlap between nations and states, and given state is already overloaded, extra words are added for clarity.

I like "state-level" because these sorts of exploits and attacks are really about resources, not sovereignty, territory, etc. The fact is a rich person or company could fund a team that does vulnerability research and get results on par with the top tier folks already doing it.

And, the UN should be called the "United Countries" since it is really about territorial areas. They admit members based on geographical claims; I don't see any ethnic, cultural, or fandom group (that isn't in control of some territory and thus also country/nation) as a member.

>spend $5,000 a semester

That's what I spent a semester (total)... in the early 90's.

These days it is more like $5,000 a semester (per class)!

It's not a hoax, it is call the gender equality paradox.

https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...

Countries with lousy job prospects for women (to sum it up bluntly) see higher STEM participation from women.

I think this is a reference to naming virus mutations... after 10 more mutations (?) we'll arrive at the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet, Xi. Which is also the family name of the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

It might be Sceptre (https://www.sceptre.com/). They do make smart TV's (their Android TV line) but their other lines are basically panels.

>The freaking out about "oh no I gotta write a small library myself" is absurdly overblown here

I don't think it is.

At work, I'm adding some basic metrics/logging functionality to an internal library, to see how it's being used. The idea is to log a few parameters and the tech lead suggested using JSON format.

No problem right? Well my work environment is quirky and let's just say it is hard to use outside libraries for various reasons. It can happen there is just a lengthy IT process to go through... eventually most reasonable requests will be filled (copied/mirrored internally, or binaries imported). But there is a delay.

This is all besides the point other than to say: I either need to wait a few weeks, or write my own minimal JSON library.

How hard can that be? I mean, it's just JSON. Well earlier today I was checking reddit and saw an announcement that "JSON for Modern C++ was released" (https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/p69plb/json_for_modern...). Hey cool, I can see what the library looks like and maybe rip off some of their code while I'm waiting for a "please mirror this internally" request to finish.

This library is thousands of lines long... for JSON. I'm not disparaging the author or JSON, it looks like an awesome library with great diagnostics, I'm more trying to point out that even for the SIMPLE format of JSON, a serious library is 10K+ lines. That's a hell of a lot of extra work to put on a team when writing a JSON (or whatever) library probably isn't the actual work that needs to be done.

Elm likely has a JSON library ready to use, but having your seasoned team reinventing the wheel for so many other libraries isn't a good use of dev time. I can't think of simpler libraries to write than JSON and even that is 10K lines long. Other than the insanity of nodejs and leftpad and libraries like that. If the attitude for every single library needed is "we can write that from scratch" the team is never going to get anywhere.

I'd interpret the phrase "taking geometry" in this context to refer to the quality and depth of math education available, and to a lesser degree how wealthy the school district is.

Given typical HS math curriculum (algebra/geometry up to calculus) being able to offer geometry early gives enough time to offer calculus; otherwise a school could teach it late and it won't matter because math education stops early anyway.

Also connotes to a degree college-track vs non college-track students, again due to the highest math a HS offers. It is extremely desirable to take calculus in HS to prepare for college, but if most students don't go to college, no need to take/offer calculus, no need to start the math sequence early, etc.

I went to HS in the US and I remember a split in the math curriculum starting in 10th grade (I didn't go to my HS in 9th grade so I can't say). The vast majority of kids planning on college took a combined algebra 2/trigonometry class in 10th grade; the other kids took either algebra 1, geometry, or algebra 2 (without the trig) depending on previous courses.

So the comment "taking geometry in 8th vs 9th vs 10th grade" would mean something like comparing schools for numbers of college-track students and funding (8th grade great - implies a HS with a large body of students going to college, well funded in order to offer variety of classes; 10th grade not good - implies a HS with a small body of students going to college; not well funded, math stops before calculus, etc.)

>I always wondered if studying law, also prepares your mind for coding

Could work in reverse too. I met the author Ken Liu at a convention, and he mentioned he started out as a software engineer, and then went to law school. And then began writing on the side as well.

Part of the business model is to work with manufacturers to offer smaller packaging, i.e. less product, for the same price. Consumers are more sensitive to price and not unit price.

Another strategy would be "shrinkflation" (great Planet Money coverage on this: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/07/06/1012409112/bew...). Over time you'd just sell less stuff for the same price point.

But yes, some of the various Dollar stores have left the strict $1 product rule.

Climate change is more than just how mild the winters will become. It is also different weather patterns like heavy rainstorms and the resulting floods.

Cologne Germany is about 50 degrees north and the surrounding areas were hit hard. Zhengzhou China is about 34 degrees north and was also hit hard by flooding. That further south than the Mason Dixon line... more like the latitude of Raleigh, North Carolina.

So sure, lovely to live if you guard against constant potential storms and floods, omni-present ground water, the possibility of several days in a row of 100+ F temps, etc.

>How do they think Facebook will stay operational?

The same way ads work in print media - the publisher doesn't have as detailed targeting info for the advertiser, and presumably would charge less.

All the gas stations in OR are full-service, that is, an employee of the gas station will fill your gas tank for you.

A colleague implemented a small utility in Clojure (~50 lines long) that worked great. It led to a mandate that allowable languages are: C/C++, C#, Python.

The colleague left 4-5 years ago for an external job. Part of the problem was the utility needed some enhancements/extensions and nobody wanted to continue it in Clojure. I think it was rewritten as an overhaul/revamp of the larger project it was part of.

I also left but for a different internal position where I can write C/C++, Java, Rust, Python (no C# in new group because new job is writing software to run on linux, and our IT does not support dotnet core - in addition there is no demand from us because we have a zillion lines of code all written before any dotnet on linux existed). EDIT: Old group can use C# because that work was on Windows (just to clarify C# wasn't dropped company wide).

Anyway, some orgs might be more receptive to "exotic" languages but I know where I work you'd have to fight really hard to do it. I was pleasantly surprised to see Rust got the thumbs up.

Meanwhile, I refer to Git Flight Rules (https://github.com/k88hudson/git-flight-rules) on a weekly basis. Especially the branches section - somehow I'm checking in or pulling from the wrong branch, or branching from the wrong parent, and cleaning up is so tedious/annoying. I'm gonna check out this "git undo" command in the article.

>U.S. government usually only fixes issues in a short term mindset

That's part of the problem - Representatives get elected every 2 years so they have a short term mindset.

But, the government isn't the only player here. U.S. Corporations hold some amount of responsibility for moving production overseas.

Corporations have even a shorter mindset - they need quarterly numbers to look good for Wall Street, so they don't think much past 3 months!

>An independent auditor, with reputation on the line,

I don't think this will matter. Moody's and S&P are two rating agencies that both failed to give useful info before the 2008 financial crisis. Their reputations weren't affected much as far as I can tell.

Not having municipal broadband is different issue than having municipal broadband outlawed state-wide.

https://ilsr.org/washington-state-removes-all-barriers-to-mu...

Seems to me the Democrats in WA have worked to allow municipal broadband to exist whereas the Republicans in OH are trying for the opposite outcome.

This tickled a memory... I remember seeing a Bioinformatics for Perl book ~20 years ago. I found it on O'reilly's website: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/beginning-perl-for/0596...

Searching more I see a Python one appears in 2009: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/bioinformatics-programm...

And now there are several out. Plus expanded topics like Python and Machine Learning, Python and Data Analysis, etc.

Matt Levine's summary in his current newsletter is this:

"So at some point the company looked for ways to make this insane business model work, and it found one. It’s pretty simple: What if MoviePass collected your $10 each month and then, when you asked it for movie tickets, it ignored you? Then it could keep collecting your $10 a month without spending money on tickets. Eventually you’d get annoyed by not getting what you paid for, and you’d try to cancel your membership and get your money back, but MoviePass could ignore that too and keep collecting the $10. Giving people unlimited movie tickets for $10 a month is a good way to get rapid customer growth; telling people you’ll give them unlimited movie tickets for $10 a month, but not actually doing it, is a way to pivot to profitability."

And the way they ignored you was even worse - changing the passwords on their highest volume users.

Anyway, it's a great read. Subscribe, it is a fantastic free newsletter. Past awesome coverage included the RobinHood stock hijinks. (Bloomberg's Money Stuff newsletter, sub here: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff)