pahool

which is linked in the article

Just because something has a price associated with it, that does not make the pricing model inherently correct or just. The majority of research papers, at least in the U.S., are (or historically have been, I don't know the data now under the current administration) publicly funded, one way or another. Publicly-funded research should not be behind paywalls.

https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb202326/funding-sources-of-acad...

do you have a source other than a tweet from the Twitter account of a political hack?

Also, a lot of American carrom boards were produced with a checker board one side and a crokinole board on the other side.

Have you tried Flickwars? I don't own it, but played a demo version at a board game convention maybe five years back. I still keep wanting to pull the trigger on buying it but I've been trying to reel in my boardgame-purchasing problem a bit.

Most flicking/dexterity games are pretty abstract: lightly themed, if they're themed at all. And a lot of the ones that are themed, somehow don't get it "right". Flickwars is pretty cool in that it's got a light space battle theme with asymmetric team powers. It also has a neoprene board which, while not being as satisfying as polished wood, makes a surprisingly satisfying flicking surface. There's a modular setup to the game, where players place obstacles on or (because of the neoprene surface) UNDER the board. This meshes nicely with the space theme as you can consider these obstacles as gravitational anomalies. All-in-all, it's a pretty lightweight game, but it's a fun diversion from heavier board games.

Almost twenty years ago, I brought a crokinole board into my work and it became a very popular diversion. We came up with a cutthroat version where four players could play individually rather than the more traditional 2v2 four-player variant.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/192278/awesome-four-player-...

Generally, crokinole is a much less punishing game than carrom, if we're talking about Indian carrom boards. American carrom boards, that were really popular in after-school programs when I was growing up, have relatively HUGE pockets than the Indian boards, in addition to being smaller boards. American carrom is like playing 8-ball, Indian carrom is like playing snooker.

I like carrom a lot, but I'm terrible at it. I'm at least a reasonable player at crokinole, and it's a lot easier to introduce others to the game without them getting too frustrated by it.

Often in tabletop crokinole play, the "sand" isn't even used. Modern boards are often slick enough to get away with playing without it, and if it's a board that you roll out regularly, you may not want the cleanup overhead associated with using shuffleboard "sand."

Also note that you'd never use actual sand on a crokinole board or tabletop shuffleboard. Sand, wax, or powder is what the shuffleboard products are referred to as and are made of specially formulated silicone beads (much less abrasive than, say, beach sand) or cornmeal, or even sometimes ground walnut shells.

$25 for 12 oz? Yikes!

I prefer Mango Languages, which I get for free through my public library. The progression feels better to me, it's not as gamified (sorry for using that word), and there is some (though not a ton of) actual lesson content in there. For example, learning Spanish, it gives some context on the different usages of "Ser" vs. "Estar" for "to be", and it includes discussion on gendered nouns. DuoLingo may have gotten to some brief lesson content at some point, but for me it was too grating to continue with and I quit before I made much progress with it.

Cool. Now can we get wireless carriers to stop advertising their bandwidth-capped plans as "unlimited"?

I'm currently looking at alternatives for self-hosting. Do you prefer gogs to gitea? why, if so?

zombo.com still kicking!

> The Author is arguing for replacing the chain with power wires, by generating power from pedaling and feeding it into the motor (with efficiency losses of 5%)

My understanding is that the efficiency loss is strictly limited to delivering electrical power back to mechanical power via motor instead of via the chain drive. The problem with this design is that it completely eliminates the ability to deliver mechanical energy directly. The rider pedaling charges the battery which then powers the motor. Going from mechanical energy to stored electrical energy is going to introduce a much greater loss in efficiency than a mere 5%. In a more standard e-bike model, when the rider pedals, my understanding is that they are delivering mechanical energy directly, bypassing the conversion to electrical energy. I may be wrong as I am not very familiar with e-bikes, but, if this is the case, the 5% figure seems highly misleading.

What headphones do you use while swimming? I've been looking into getting a pair for swimming, and am interested in recommendations.

What's going on in the comment section with the numbers?

Some background on FREOPP: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Researc...

The "Handy Library" Android app includes an ISBN scanner and allows you to import and export collection data.

You could also check out some of the tooling and APIs around openlibrary.org. Unfortunately, I think it's basically a moribund project, but may have sufficient tools for your needs. I know they have a list feature, but I don't think ingestion is particularly easy; nor am I sure of the import/export functionality around their lists.

edit: I'd forgotten about librarything (mentioned in another comment). They have better tooling that openlibrary.

If that's meant to be a justification of relevancy, it's quite a stretch.

Did you take much of a battery life hit with the addition of the NVMe drive?

mosh is a lifesaver on flights, where latency typically exceeds 500ms

I've found the discomfort with near-freezing water in our cold-water-supply-only bidet seat to be minimal. Sure, I'd prefer warmer water, but it's really not that bad.

The Washington Post article was hearsay, and this article adds nothing new. No real sources are cited except for Dennis Franks, an ex-FBI agent, who somehow can't fathom how anyone could use "stolen credentials to conduct intrusions of 150 or more confidential university accounts in the United States" without the Russian government's involvement. As if leaked university credentials were difficult to get. Most university's put their journal access behind a single sign-on proxy server or vpn and access to most of these journals is available by IP address authentication. It is ridiculously easy to get access to leaked university credentials, and in some cases, users have donated their login and password to sci-hub. Students at universities rarely face consequences for having had their account compromised (if it's even detected) other than having their account temporarily locked until they change their password.

I feel like my life would be a lot easier if I just got my parents and in-laws using Chromebooks. I don't like sacrificing family members on Google's altar, but the ecosystem really just fits their use cases.

I've considered something like Solus-based laptops for them, but I haven't gotten around to testing out a configuration yet.

I appreciate your clarification, but the assertion that "conspiracy theorists are overwhelming[ly] just mentally ill to begin with" is exactly what I'm refuting.

I suppose part of it is a matter of definition, since there is a spectrum of belief in unproven "conspiracy theories". Is a "conspiracy theorist" one who believes in a conspiracy theory, or one who creates conspiracy theories? Is someone who believes that there may have been a conspiracy associated with the JFK assassination a "conspiracy theorist"? They're certainly not on the same level as someone who willfully defies all evidence and logic to continue to assert that the Earth is flat. There's a spectrum of the amount of deviance from logic and evidence as well of a spectrum of the strength of one's belief in these "theories".

I think that a large number of people subscribe to some sort of unproven "conspiracy theory" and that it is incorrect to assert that this population is overwhelmingly mentally ill.

If you use people who go to a flat earth convention as your basis for a representative sample of the mental health of conspiracy theorists, I think you're going to get a very skewed result. You're skewing very high on the spectrum of deviance from evidence and logic, as well as very high on the spectrum of strength of belief.

I would probably agree with your assertion if my definition of what constituted a "conspiracy theorist" met a minimum criteria of a certain threshold value on those two spectrums, but I think that the term "conspiracy theorist" is very nuanced and therefore problematic and even dangerous, especially when we start throwing around phrases like "conspiracy theorists are overwhelming[ly] just mentally ill to begin with". Here's an interesting article on the topic of "conspiracy theory" as a dangerous misnomer:

http://theconversation.com/in-defence-of-conspiracy-theories...

I disagree that most conspiracy theorists are mentally ill, except maybe in some extremely loose definition of the term, where mere illogic is equated with mental illness.

I like this quote from Michael Shermer: "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." Smart people frequently get involved in conspiracy theories through a combination of confirmation bias and the spinning-wheels-in-the-sand effect where they become more entrenched in their beliefs by being forced to defend them.

Being illogical is not necessarily mental illness. Sometimes, it's just pig-headed stubbornness.

https://michaelshermer.com/2002/09/smart-people-believe-weir...

Also, keep in mind that, depending on where you live, you may be able to carry cards for multiple libraries. In California, for instance, many major public libraries only require state residency. So, while traveling within the state, pick up library cards for as many libraries as you can. When I was living in California, I had library cards for Los Angeles County, Los Angeles City, Santa Monica, San Jose, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, and I could use the e-resources of any of these libraries.

Additionally, there is a plugin for Firefox called "Available Reads" that allows you to enter your Overdrive account information for your various library cards. Then, when browsing goodreads, the plugin will show you the Overdrive availability of the books you are browsing at all of the libraries at which you are a member, and provide links out to the catalog entry for those libraries' copies of the ebooks/e-audiobooks.

a used car is not the same as a beater. Getting a used car that is just a few years old will shave off a good chunk of the depreciation curve in many cases without sacrificing features/reliability.

What's the general tone toward folks coming to the program later in life? Possibly without a strong tech background but smart and looking to start a new career. How about folks with a criminal background looking to start a new life? A lot of the coding bootcamps I've seen have been geared toward the young or very specific demographics (e.g. women). Do you have a specific demographic that you are targeting?

I was under the impression that it's no longer being developed.