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wolverine876on Can turning office towers into apartments save downtowns?

Crime is historically low in many cities, including NYC. Visit and you'll see what I mean.

wolverine876on Defending the city: An overview of defensive tactics

(2022)

The date is important because it was written before the Ukraine-Russia war's use of drones ramped up. The article doesn't mention drones (UAVs) afaict - how to use them in attack and defense, how to protect yourself - which is today a major omission.

wolverine876on Can turning office towers into apartments save downtowns?

Much of the OP addresses that question.

wolverine876on Can turning office towers into apartments save downtowns?

> a similar "doom loop" of crime, undevelopment, decaying historic buildings, etc.

That's not the doom loop in the OP, which results from office space demand decreasing due to so many working remotely:

Urban theorists describe a phenomenon called the “doom loop”: once workers stop filling up downtown offices, the stores and restaurants that serve them close, which in turn makes the area even emptier. And who wants to work somewhere with no services?

> every block has similar projects of 100+ year old buildings of nontrivial sizes that are now super unique apartments

Per the OP (and I've read elsewhere), older buildings are easier to convert because their floors are smaller, which makes it much easier to give a windows to every apartment (a law in many/most/all places).

wolverine876on What makes a translation great?

The errors I'm talking about could be fixed by any fluent speaker.

wolverine876on What makes a translation great?

> I stumbled upon War Music after discarding (almost) every other translation of the Iliad because the translators cleary didn't get it

Homer's world is very alien to ours. I realized at one point, reading the Odyssey, that it is myself who didn't get it. There was a chasm between me and Homer, and if I wanted read and understand Homer in a meaningful way, I was going to have to cross it.

Unless I have personal expertise, how can I evaluate who 'gets it', Logue or others?

wolverine876on What makes a translation great?

I see that in other places too. I fear it reduces the films to the level of camp. Do the directors not think it matters? Do they not have easy access to fluent speakers of English?

wolverine876on What makes a translation great?

> The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature.

If I want to read inspired Ezra Pound or Christopher Logue, that's the way. If I want to read Confucius, I get a lot of Ezra Pound mixed in, and in a way that is impossible for me to distinguish one from the other. The same goes for wanting to read Homer and getting a lot of Logue.

(For Confucius, Arthur Waley was both leading translator and poet, and Waley's translations are highly recommended for their knowledge of the original and their English poetry.)

wolverine876on The paradox of India's global rise, its regional decline

Rationally, it's still fringe. Like many far-right parties today, in Europe, the US, Latin America, etc., the BJP has built popular support for fringe ideas.

We too quickly forget our history if we don't expect that or think popularity confers rational or moral legitimacy: Mao, Lenin/Stalin, Hitler, not to mention Pol Pot, Suharto, Pinochet, etc etc. were very popular.

wolverine876on Evaluating bias and noise induced by the U.S. Census Bureau's privacy protection

For the US House of Representatives, I think the current setup (approximately equal representation) is in the Constitution. It would be hard to change.

wolverine876on The paradox of India's global rise, its regional decline

That is quite a map on its own merits. It doesn't make Afghanistan 'South Asia' in their conception.

Out of curiosity, do you know anything about the publication, Modern Diplomacy? It has a lot of interesting coverage that isn't generally available elsewhere, but I have no idea how much and in what ways to trust it.

wolverine876on The paradox of India's global rise, its regional decline

The arrival of China in South Asia, the withdrawal of the U.S. from the region, and India’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific have shifted the regional balance of power in Beijing’s favour. Sensing this new power equation, South Asia’s smaller powers, India’s neighbours, are engaged in a range of strategies: balancing, bargaining, hedging and bandwagoning. India’s smaller neighbours seem to find China as a useful hedge against India, for the moment at least.

I'm not sure what withdrawl they mean. The US withdrew from Afghanistan, but that is clearly Central Asia and not South Asia (unless it's defined differently in India?).

The US has withdrawn from other regions, especially the Mideast, in order to focus on China. But the US very much considers the Indian Ocean as part of the competition with China (usually using the term 'Indo-Pacific'; even the military command there is INDOPACOM); I'd be surprised if it ceded South Asia to China.

wolverine876on Evaluating bias and noise induced by the U.S. Census Bureau's privacy protection

How do we address discrimination against racial minorities? While I work for a colorblind society, I know we're obviously not there yet.

Another difficulty is that we legislate based on race without saying the word, both intentionally (e.g., find another way to characterize the target of discrimination) and unintentionally (e.g., our education system limits opportunities for some racial minorities, both due to poorer education and lack of social connections; colleges and employers, if they just follow the 'system', end up discriminating).

wolverine876on Evaluating bias and noise induced by the U.S. Census Bureau's privacy protection

For many US offices, such as state and federal legislators (except federal senators), the districts need to have approximately equal populations - each voter needs approximately the same fractional influence in the legislature. Counties don't have equal populations.

wolverine876on World Food Atlas: Discover local dishes and ingredients

> This conforms with the Chinese eating culture: there are foods that should be left to restaurants.

Why? Are they too complex for people to make at home?

wolverine876on The best way to have complex discussions?

> Usenet died due to spam. Newsgroups were unmoderated by default, and moderation wasn’t built into the protocol.

Doesn't that make Usenet unfit for complex public discussions, at least?

wolverine876on Attackers can decloak routing-based VPNs

If you could list some hardware and software, it would save us the effort ...

wolverine876on Attackers can decloak routing-based VPNs

> found the actually relevant information extremely annoying to find

Skip down to the DHCP section?

wolverine876on Attackers can decloak routing-based VPNs

What I read does a great job of explaining the technology; I know it pretty well but it's great to have an updated, clear, concise, well-organized, integrated explanation all in one place. I can't imagine how long that took to make it that clear!

(Everything posted here gets similar complaints about the writing, headline, too short, too long, too hot, too cold, etc. Goldilocks is never pleased here. Welcome to HN! :)

wolverine876on [dead]

It's hard to make sense of the headline. From the body of the article:

Their lawyers are now concerned about the possibility that around ten more Boeing whistleblowers may get “scared away” due to their deaths or suffer the same fate.

wolverine876on Insects and other animals have consciousness