shadowprofile77

As a long-time "hobby" photographer of street and neighborhood life in certain parts of Mexico, I'm curious, how did you build rapport with the locals for the sake of your photography, and that friendly acceptance. I'd love to hear any advice or observations you have.

So, it being the case that jumping into a black hole will not make you disappear for good, that, particle by particle, the information needed to reconstitute your body will reemerge, I wonder how this (very speculatively here) would fit with the fascinating concept of Greg Egan's dust theory of conscious existence.

Where I live, you can get just about any blood test you want or heard of done at a days notice (excepting clinically conditional time rubrics for the sake of test accuracy, ie: waiting a couple weeks+ after possible HIV exposure to get an HIV test, that kind of thing) at any one of dozens of private laboratories for extremely reasonable costs. Complete blood profiles go for a little over the equivalent of 25 dollars US and most typical tests are not far below or just above that figure. Exotic tests can get more expensive but rarely exceed a price equivalent to 200 dollars for truly unusual things like specialized checking for exotic tropical diseases.

Socialized health is also available here but with the usual pushing and prodding necessary for anything outside the most basic, routine preventative tests, and slow at that. Advanced countries with socialized healthcare offer wonderful advantages for medical catastrophes and sufferers of chronic illnesses that would be hard to privately insure against, but when it comes to preventative discretionary healthcare, my impression is that they can be awfully bureaucratic (I used to live in Canada).

As a final additional note, we could summarize what I wrote above by stating that:

1. the cartels by no means stay safe from state level actors in their activities or protection of their operators. The contrary, they're fully in the eye of a never-ending storm. This means nearly constant, active, life-and-death threat for every single one of their members.

2. However, they do survive in an institutional sense, as organizations, but only because both their leadership structures and overall street-level manpower are apparently highly fungible. Small consolation that to any individual member of said cartels hoping to life a long, healthy life of crime while evading the law; knowing that leader or foot soldier, he or she can almost certainly look forward to a bloody death or prison existence within a decade or less, even if the organization he/she belongs to may indeed survive institutionally. Very few people seeking to build a wealth-seeking illegal organization while avoiding the state would want to emulate such an existence.

Living in Mexico here, the cartels in this country do indeed fight back against nation state adversaries (specifically the U.S government and the federal and state government forces of Mexico and its 30+ states where they operate) but the example of them as a model for just about any other organization is grotesquely mistaken. Here's why:

For one thing, they partly resist by paying immense amounts of money in bribes to government and police officials at all levels of the Mexican state apparatus, and in some cases even to lower-mid level officials of the U.S government close to the border. This is not a policy for staying under the radar or being effective at a reasonable cost (unless you're moving billions in drugs and kidnapping money)

Secondly, they depend to a large extent on a known capacity for incredibly psychotic, grotesque levels of violence to intimidate officials inside Mexico's chronically weak state institutions so that their activities can be left alone as much as possible. This requires a willingness to engage in violent criminality that few organizations in the world can match and it also involves the use of thousands of low-level foot soldiers armed to the teeth and recruited from immense pools of poverty-stricken populations (again, not applicable to many organizations or groups that just want to stay off the radar of nation state adversaries while doing their business.)

Thirdly, despite all the above, the cartels are indeed under constant attack either among each other or from state level actors in Mexico and with U.S government pressure. Consequently, their attrition rate is monstrously high, with thousands, yes thousands, of their members dying hideously bloody deaths each year in endless gun battles with authorities and rivals. This is only sustainable due to the recruiting factors of my second point above and it's certainly no model for successfully evading nation state actors. They don't evade them much, they just keep feeding more "disposable" lives to them while a small leadership more or less staves off its own eventual death by bullet or supermax prison.

As a final point, despite all of the above measures being in place, even the highly protected, wealthy leadership of these cartels eventually almost universally suffers its own extremely high attrition from state level actors: Seeing as how virtually every single major cartel boss that was running things a decade ago is now either dead or in prison, the long term prospects for any one of them are awful, despite all their money and localized power.

I assume you're being tongue-in-cheek, but just in case you're serious: No, today's wage "slavery" is not anything at all like the literal slavery of premodern times (taking aside the also literal slavery that still exists in many parts of the world today). A slave in antiquity or at any time prior to the general formal global abolition of the practice in the 19th century was literal property, with no more rights than a farm animal. Their owner could kill them, rape them, beat them or work them to death and so forth as they pleased, with no legal recourse for these human beings classed as property. Let's not insult either problems of modern life or the horrors of real slavery by equating the two just to be fashionably negative about modern capitalism..

Every single one of those private liquor stores buys its stock through the BC Liquor Distribution Branch of British Columbia, so yes, the monopoly is still very much there, just hidden behind a few facades. I suspect something similar is the case in other provinces too.

And when you consider the probable sheer social consequences of those severe lockdowns in France, that number is absurdly little to brag about. I mean, really? 585 vs. 539? One country that maintained a policy of normalizing extreme emergency authoritarianism and extreme social isolation (with all its likely consequences to health issues both mental and physical) is only very marginally "better" than another that at least showed a willingness not to treat its citizens like cattle, and you consider this worthy of hailing for a comparison?

There are also a number of countries which have done worse than Sweden despite extreme lockdown measures, so either way, it's far too early to jump to rigid conclusions on what was justifiable for which prices.

Id argue that the more obvious sign would be one in which all three drawings are present, but stacked vertically, with the radiation sign on top, followed by the death's head, but with an = sign between those two and no wavy arrow rays. Then below those two and their = sign, the person running with arrow. This would make it obvious that the radiation in the object means death and that running is extremely recommended. The triangle of graphics, with the radiation rays hitting both below almost seems to imply that X time is so deadly that you have no hope of escape even if you run.

And.... Who cares? Given Google's absurdly shitty behavior to so many users, its opacity, frequent mendacity, casual indifference to small organizations and let's not even go into all the gory details of its globe-spanning not-even-disregard-but-outright-hatred for any notion of privacy, I'd say anyone who can subvert its TOS and get away with doing so simply to save their livelihood deserves applause much more than scorn.

I would sincerely love to know how to make Firefox work this well for me. For reasons I still can't decipher, the browser tends to slow any computer I run it on terribly no matter what I do or which version I run. I've noticed this across multiple machines. Yes, I often leave dozens of tabs open but Chrome (combined with Great Suspender) never gives me trouble on this.

If anyone can suggest any sort of fix, i'd love to leave the snooping, prying Google browser behind finally.

Thank god Hacker news doesn't offer laugh emoticons like those in whatsapp or facebook, but if it did, you'd have earned several from me with this.

Not to belittle the quality of the reporting and research by the ICIJ but a hefty chunk of the site's narrative about hiding funds puts way too much often unsubstantiated focus on how evil and "dirty" the whole thing is, as a default position, which is not entirely healthy or particularly honest in philosophical terms, mainly because it by default implies that government having a right to snoop and intervene into every facet of private financial transactions is an inherently good thing.

It is not. Governments regularly engage in nefarious and dishonest financial dealings on a scale many private entities don't come close to matching. Governments also often terribly squander vast sums of public finances that they managed to squeeze from the private world, and yes, there is a very valid argument or two in favor of financial privacy being a necessary thing in the modern world, instead of just viewing it as something that automatically comes with criminal connotations just because some owners of assets seek to keep the nature and movement of theirs private.

Love these. I've been taking photos of doors, windows and lit windows at night, surrounded by darkness, as well as utility posts bathed in street light, for years. Sometimes we find what we consider to be almost overwhelmingly lovely art in the very spaces or objects that most people ignore day to day. The trick is getting others to appreciate the odd beauty inherent in these same forgotten things.

I truly don't understand why everybody keeps referencing the Mick West debunking video of the UFO footage. I actually corresponded on the guy about inconsistencies in his own debunking claims and he gave no satisfactory justification for his extremely superficial arguments, which essentially focus on his own perceptions of inconsistencies in the footage itself and simply disregard weeks of repeated sightings, radar tracking and up-close eye-witness encounters between trained, professional pilots and the objects themselves in the air. These are pilots who on at least a couple of these occasions observed the objects from fairly close range, in broad daylight and had their observations at least partially confirmed at the same time by also professional operators of sophisticated tracking systems (radar etc) onboard the Navy's ships. In the case of the Nimitz "tic-tac" UFO events from late 2014 this happened especially, during weeks leading up to the brief video that was finally captured.

Mick West simply disregards all of this and in an email I wrote to him even claims that the weeks of incidents previous to the video being captured were "separate" events from the video because they didn't concretely, confirmably show the same thing.... What? An absurd conclusion.

Debunking with a critical eye is good and necessary but sometimes one gets the feeling that certain internet debunkers feel a need to debunk at all costs because that's their label, even if their own "rational" interpretations make leaps of logic much worse than simply admitting that something inexplicable was observed.

In reply to both of the comments above, okay, perhaps my driving example wasn't the best. It was the first thing that came to mind, but I think my underlying point remains valid and applies to many other choices that one could commonly make in a life that isn't completely sheltered which nonetheless carry certain catastrophic long-tail risks. Life is by default risky, and all the more so if one lives it with some sense of adventure. this twirls all the way down into a whole series of sub-decisions that you could make inside a single larger decision. To worry too much about catastrophic long-tail risks throughout is a recipe for worrying far too much sometimes.

>The most comfortable way to think about risk is to imagine a range of potential consequences that don’t seem like a big deal. Then you feel responsible, like you’re paying attention to risk, but in a way that lets you remain 100% confident and optimistic. The problem with low-probability tail risks is that they’re so rare you can get away with ignoring them 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time they change your life.

The other side of the coin for his implicit argument that you should think about these tail end risks is that they're everywhere and in everything we all do commonly, even in fundamentally non-irresponsible activities. Ie: driving your car daily for errands around town will 99.9% of the time result in errands completed more quickly. 1 out of 1000 times, it could result in you killing yourself or someone else, even if you're always perfectly sober when you drive. Thus, while long tails risks shouldn't be forgotten, giving them too much weight as a basis for decision making could easily paralyze one into forfeiting all kinds of activity or choices. It would become a very constricting way to live a life, very quickly. Magnify this possibility accordingly for people who naturally suffer anxiety issues about life.

Am I missing something or has a controversy been created out of nearly thin air by random politicized factors here? Facebook may be a gigantic media company with a whole social component, but it's still in many ways (especially in terms of advertising) mostly another media company with lots of eyeballs, fundamentally like so many media companies that have existed for a very long time.

Since political ads have been a part of media placement since (a very damn long time ago), what justification beyond hand wavey "it's a social danger" arguments can some of you favoring this state for such a ban or the feeling of having to pursue it?

It almost seems as if this only started being a supposed problem since the unpopular-among-educated-liberal-types Trump won an election. Prior to that I recall much less mention of anyone worrying too much about political ads on social media (my memory might be faulty on that though). So, is it a general thing or are we talking about many people now thinking there's a problem mainly because someone they happen to dislike took advantage of social media to win a major election?

Also worth noting:

1. Much of the really rabid fake news type content on platforms like Facebook doesn't even come from paid in-platform ads. It's sourced and virally spread from people (or fake accounts in many cases) posting it more or less organically, albeit in a highly coordinated way sometimes.

2. The whole argument of Russia supposedly using Facebook to "influence" the 2016 election has yet to be in any way credibly substantiated and has gone nowhere so far. Or does anyone have a piece of concrete evidence arguing the opposite to put forth?

I don't see how you could disagree on the first point though. Not only is is often done today to varying degrees of success depending on country and technology, it was exactly how much of consumer crypto got its start back in the earlier days of the internet. During the 90's technologies like RSA, PGP and others basically got built and released while constantly treading all over extremely shaky legal ground. It was their widespread usefulness and steadily growing adoption by users that allowed them to in effect circumvent archaic laws until they were simply recognized as legally usable.

Both can be done, activist opposition, and a practical move to build the tools that make circumventing such privacy-hating regulatory nonsense all the more easy to pull off. More simply put: while active public opposition to bad laws is good, few things nullify bad laws better than a fait accompli that's out of the bag.

Why not work on said technology? It can even end up being very lucrative to take up the cause. Do you forget that prior to the 90s (and also during part of the 90s) much of the lead-in to the completely common, widely commercially and privately used digital encryption we have today was completely discouraged or even made illegal by governments except for their own use.

It was a generation of pioneers who weren't quite so timid about working on new technology and fight absurd, archaic laws that built the foundations of modern consumer/commercial encryption. The U.S government especially tried very hard to chill these efforts too, and failed (so far at least).

Another novel that I really recommend, which mixes fantasy with social critique and science in one very interesting way, is "Soldiers of Paradise" by Paul Park. Its description of a world with seasons which last for generations and a caste-bound theocratic society that blends magic and touches of the modern world has a certain stark beauty to it.

Major agreement with you there, and glad i'm not the only one. After reading the incredibly rich, beautifully rendered world of The Anubis Gates, I expected more of the same from his other books, but no, not quite as good, oddly. That book however remains the single best time travel fantasy novel I've ever read to this day.

The blend of nearly phantasmagoric horror, fantasy and a touch of science fiction is unique too. If anyone knows of any similar novels from other authors, i'm all ears.

Yes, that's one useful option, in cases where those contracting work or buying services want to or know about using it. But does Transferwise also have a tendency to engage in Paypal's now famous other habit of randomly freezing accounts (with all funds held for weeks or even months sometimes) for ambiguous claims of suspicious activity? This too is yet another one of this dumpster fire's habits

What a godawful piece of shit company. For freelancers of many kinds, it's also one of the only available methods of payment out there, especially for those doing low to mid-pay copywriting work, graphic design and so forth. The fees and somewhat hidden currency conversion fees add up to a serious chunk of any payment, and way in excess of anything justified by what Paypal does to facilitate those transactions. It's in effect simply extorting these funds from people who often are those that can least afford to see margins shaved off their pay. Despicable.

the world of cryptocurrencies may be loaded with fraudulent activity and gets hated on extensively by many well-paid programmer types here at HN, but in facilitating payments for low paid freelance work, it's amazing for the cheapness of transactions and the speed with which one can get their money in their hands. (whenever you find someone who actually knows how to or is willing to pay in this way for work done internationally in ways that don't allow for in-country instant payment transfers like the E-Transfer mentioned below in another comment for Canada).

I really don't think so. There was an externally verifiable chain of evidence created by Ulbricht through random tidbits of sloppy opsec on a few occasions, enough of them for him to eventually be identified and caught. So if these existed (and they did, because they could be clearly pointed to), there was no need for parallel construction, and if there was no need for it, it presumably wouldn't have been used just because. Furthermore, if they were going to use it anyhow, why wait so long to do so when they had the needed formal evidence anyhow?

That's a loaded and extremely variable question. Furthermore, it has little relevance to the main thing I criticized above: that misdemeanors are usually irrelevant to most work and rejecting people because of them is grossly, punitively biased. I say irrelevant because in the context of your question, the value of some random public disorderliness citation or DUI is next to useless for judging how inherently or professionally honest a person is, and even more absurd for measuring how likely they are to commit outright criminal offenses against an employer.

It's very easy to get slapped with a misdemeanor in the U.S and even many other countries, often for absurd, bullshit reasons that had more to do with the mood of the authorities in a given context than a person being at all an abnormal danger to society.

Yes, but multiply the ransom by multiple small, low ransom targets, as is commonly the case with groups taking a more diversified approach of targeting many small companies in the same attack type, partly depending on such small ransom demands to individually not even be reported to investigating authorities, and getting at least a partial ROI. This opposed to making a huge single demand from one large company that almost certainly causes your ransom attempt to trigger a police investigation and the not small chance of the company simply deciding not to pay, leaving you with 0 for that particular effort.

This is just puritanical, judgemental idiocy at its most pointlessly discriminatory. Even for felony offenses it often veers into the same territory but flatly refusing to hire people for fucking misdemeanors with absolutely no relevance to most of the work involved? What a closed, almost hatefully punitive mentality some employers have. I can't put myself into another's shoes or context of needs, but if I ran a firm that subcontracted employees to other companies, who then refused to accept them for some half-assed DUI from years back, I hope I'd have the decency to fire that client instead.

Seeing as how Sweden was entirely surrounded by Nazi Germany or its possessions, it's not hard to see why they would have given Berlin slightly favorable trade conditions. Especially with any potential help against military invasion being on the other side of a lot of land and sea. In fact, a closer reading of Swedish history during WWII shows that this was exactly what influenced their biases towards the Nazis' favor here and there.

Despite this, Sweden still did an impressive job of allowing in many refugees from persecution. Its diplomatic representatives were instrumental in assisting the persecuted throughout Europe during the whole war. Anyone interested should look up, for example: Raul Wallenberg and Count Folke Bernadotte.

Sweden had nothing to apologize for during the war, and especially given the much more evident racism of other states like the U.S, which explicitly forbade many refugee jews from entering U.S soil during the Nazi persecutions and expulsions of the 1930's before the war. The writing was on the wall in dripping red letters, but Roosevelt simply disregarded it to please certain voters. At one point in 1942, when presented by Polish resistence agent Jan Karski with a whole eye witness narrative of the massive German extermination program against the jews in Poland, his first question to the Home Army solider was about the Nazi treatment of horses and cattlein the occupied territory!