493 karma · joined October 13, 2021
Also Stanford literally has a building named after Bill Gates: https://www.cs.stanford.edu/about/gates-computer-science-bui...
None of us had any idea of how powerful one of these was! The flame that came out the front was over a foot long. We thought maybe the potato would reach the back fence of our yard, but it was launched into oblivion. Luckily our house backed up onto a nature preserve, so at least no-one had a surprise potato land on them.
We had much fun that summer iterating on designs and trying every type of various projectile we could find.
What exactly is a hate crime and how is it precisely defined such that it's more serious than crime in general?
If you punch someone in the face vs Punch them because they are a woman vs Punch them because they are white vs Punch them because they are black vs Punch them because they are gay vs Punch them because they are a nazi vs Punch them because they are a commie
Which of these is a hate crime and which is a "normal" crime. Which get punished more harshly and how to decide the motivation other than in the absolutely most obvious cases of the person confessing why they did it.
But I wonder, if you were optimizing for improving more people's lives in a more meaningful way with limited funds, would you come to the conclusion that you could do so by focusing on improving the lives of those in the no adverse experiences group because you might be able to get more "life improvement units" per dollar?
Most think resources should be targeted towards groups that "deserve it more" because they are "worse off", but it's interesting to think if your goal is to create more happiness or whatever per dollar, maybe the discussion would lead us to investing in groups that are not on the proverbial "bottom"
I've worked in the public sector for several years, and there are definitely a decently-sized group of people in many different positions that are riding out their time until retirement trying to fly under the radar and do as little as possible. Not to say there aren't people that aren't competent, but as a competent person you have to work around the people that don't care and often actively don't want to see more work come their way to get anything done. It becomes tiring and eventually the private sector is too enticing and the competent people leave.
It's why, though, there are a bunch of payments companies that have popped up in places throughout Asia that aren't competing with rewards systems off the back of interchange.
In my case, I pay for as much as I possibly can using a credit card and then pay it off at the end of the month so that I can get that % reward back and am not charged any fees.
It seems like the proposal is to take away rewards for everyone because there's a group of people that can't help themselves. Why not just be more strict about who gets a credit card.
>So when the relay stations need fixing, boats and skilled labor show up to help get the town back online.
I'm sure if you factor in the costs of this plus the nontangible costs of downtime, Starlink is far superior, even if it is more expensive.
Is this not just blatant extortion?
It's great they want to build big buildings, but the reality is if you say a group of people are above the law, then they can do whatever they want, including things that would be solely in their interest and in no-one else's.