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zaccusl

72 karma · joined February 7, 2020

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zaccusl··on Even Republicans are falling out of love with Tesla
Agree Democrats are largely ineffective and incompetent.

But countering propaganda is way harder than spreading propaganda. It's easier to spread all over right-wing media that Democrats are working tirelessly to protect an MS13 gang member than to protect due process and the rule of law for all Americans while defending a man that most likely has no ties to MS13 or crime in general and was wrongly deported.

It's like the Fox news defamation case loss against Dominion. They spread those lies (while knowing they were lies) for weeks and millions of Americans believed them. Those same Americans have no idea they paid close to a $1 billion settlement for those lies.

Propaganda fits nicely in 3 sentence memes that are designed to invoke fear and emotion but is hard to counter without long and sometimes complex explanations that involve nuance.

How many conservative still believe there are public elementary classrooms that have litter boxes for kids to identify as cats?

Americans still think other countries pay for Trump's tariffs. Why? Because it's easy for Trump to tweet lies 40 times per day about how good tariffs are and it's finely time for these countries "to pay their fair share". How easy is it to counter with a rational and thoughtful economic discussion of why the tariffs will fail to achieve any stated goal?

zaccusl··on South Korean president declares martial law, parliament votes to lift it
I don't know much about coups actually work, but a general does not make an army.

A general that wants to stage a coup seems like they must still require the support of the troops.

Speaking anecdotally, every unit I've been in not a single man would follow the questionably illegal orders of any general unless they had full respect and confidence in that general, and typically the troops only have full respect and confidence in a subset of their immediate leaders (which are not typically generals). I guarantee a LARGE percentage of troops would treat the highest ranking general as an enemy combatant if their direct (low ranking) leaders who they respected convinced them that the general's orders were illegal or against their oaths. Soldiers don't die for generals, they die for each other, and "each other" is usually enlisted or low-ish ranking officers (maybe captain and below in the US). A professional and disciplined soldier will charge a hill risking certain death on the orders of a general, but a professional and disciplined soldier will not stage a coup on the orders of a general alone.

zaccusl··on We've already seen category 6 hurricanes – scientists want to make it official
There is absolutely no possible way that you (or any other person) would notice a 4 inch GLOBAL AVERAGE rise in sea level over the last few decades. I don't care if you literally spent 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year on your belly at the high tide mark.

The data is the data and you need a lot more than "living on the beach" to refute it.

And yes, the sea level is different in different parts of the Earth. Why? Because forces are different in different parts of the Earth. Current (which impart forces) alone is enough to make a difference in sea level in two different parts of the Earth.

And yes, land changing elevation is colloquially part of sea level rise.

The problem with using your brain is it doesn't make you an expert in things, or able to refute expertise without actual knowledge. And simple observations do not amount to much knowledge on anything but the most simple subject.

zaccusl··on We've already seen category 6 hurricanes – scientists want to make it official
Can you clarify?

Are you saying that locations of the hurricanes have not changed, it's merely that there are now people/structures there so it's now noticeable? Or that humans are altering storm paths based on structural changes to the environment?

zaccusl··on Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16
I feel like there is no good way to market the fact that some school districts are banning the dictionary to comply with all the "word" and "thought" ban laws.

Like how do you spin that so it's a good thing that some teachers can't even have books in their classrooms to avoid running afoul of the law?

How do you spin book bans as a good thing in any circumstance?

How do you spin the laws that remove parents rights to make medical decisions for their children when the medical decisions conform with the current state of the art and evidence based treatments?

Other than that, I think most people just treat Florida as a meme thanks to the Florida man stereotype.

zaccusl··on Fair coins tend to land on the same side they started
Isn't that a different problem entirely? The original is that the host reveals a door without the prize.

Aren't you modeling an entirely different problem as opposed to modeling the same problem with a different model, since the problem states the parameters and you are changing those?

zaccusl··on A beautiful, broken America: what I learned on a 2,800-mile bus ride
It's typically considered an anti-American, anti-freedom ideology in the US to require people to carry any sort of documents, including ID.

Of course, this idea is slowly being eroded by authoritarian ideas and if you are not white (in the southwest US at least) you better have an ID unless you want to risk being unlawfully detained/arrested by border guards or police. This has been a big deal in some states for quite a while now.

But it used to be that in the US, having to show authorities an ID was a horror straight out of the USSR or East Germany.

zaccusl··on Ideas That Changed My Life
That's because the center doesn't work for many things.

If you support individual patients making their own healthcare decisions with their doctors, how do you find the center with someone who wants to take that right away for reasons that have zero effect on them?

If you support a consenting adults right to love and marry whichever consenting adult they want, how do you find the center with someone who wants to tell people which consenting adults they can and can't marry?

If you think people should not be denied jobs or housing based solely on what's in the their pants, how do you find the center with people who think it's okay to deny people jobs and housing based on what's in their pants?

How do you find the center with the Nazi party?

The center is meaningless for most issues that actually matter.

zaccusl··on Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military
On par? I mean, alcohol will literally kill you if you drink too much or have prolonged exposure. Alcohol makes you sick and fat.

If anything, alcohol is far worse than cannibas. Time will tell what effects it has on the wider population, but keep in mind cannibas use has been pretty wide spread for centuries and has been legal in many places in the US for over a decade.

zaccusl··on Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military
Have you ever served? In combat? I have, USMC infantry. I want a professional fighting force with smart of professional fighters and support. Yes, you need mental toughness. But if you are so mentally weak that you can't handle a course on sexual harassment then you are not mentally tough. You need a "non-woke" safe-space.

What you describe is what Russia wants and needs. Look how well that is working out for them.

The military gets stronger by having a disciplined, smart fighting force. Not some frat-house where being "manly" is the only requirement.

zaccusl··on Texas Is Trying to Scrub Abortion from Its Internet
The "government" does not deem it harmful though. This is pure politics.
zaccusl··on Japan was the future but it's stuck in the past
Do you mean like the way Philando Castile was calm, reasonable, and cooperative while being executed after being stopped for a break light issue?

What about Charles Kinsey who was as cool and compliant and non-threatening as possible,

What about Donovan Lewis? Is it reasonable to execute a sleeping man?

What about Erik Cantu? I guess eating a hamburger in a parking lot is a capital offense?

BTW, the number of cases like the few I mentioned are FAR too numerous to even keep track of.

If you think that a persons skin color has no effect on how likely they are to be killed by a cop then you are just completely wrong.

zaccusl··on Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists
Source or examples?
zaccusl··on Demystifying Fourier analysis
I've never heard of one either. The first time I was introduced to an uncertainty principle for the DFT was in time-frequency analysis which exists due to not being able to know both time domain and frequency domain information simultaneously. There is some shared concepts from QM, but they are not the same thing.
zaccusl··on Ask HN: What piece of code/codebase blew your mind when you saw it?
The only time I've ever ran into a stack limitation was real-time embedded systems with a tiny stack.

For modern computers/tablets I have never experienced an issue. Granted, what really matters is your data/recursion level, but even hundreds of recursive calls are not a problem for most applications.

Recursive solutions are usually so much easier to understand than stack/array based looping solutions that they are my go to for things like tree traversals or searching.

zaccusl··on New Jersey legislators aim to ban most in-car subscriptions
Not only that, a car is basically a requirement for life in the US. With a complete lack of decent public transportation in the majority of the US, couples with a lack of walkable communities, a car is virtually required.

Anybody who disagrees, try living in the Phoenix metro with a family without a car. Good luck buying groceries, getting to the doctor, etc...

zaccusl··on Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of Marijuana
Pardon makes it possible/easier to have your record expunged. These pardons also effectively decriminalize possession at the federal level.

It's far from an empty gesture. But at the same time it is also a token, bare minimum gesture.

zaccusl··on Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of Marijuana
Not really. His promise was to build the wall AND make Mexico pay for it.

At one point congress agreed to give him almost $6 Billion to build the wall and he turned it down, never to be in that position again. If he wanted to build the wall he could have accepted that $6 billion or negotiated in good faith.

Also, his desire to build the wall was never a principled argument. "Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it" tested well with his audience so his campaign jumped on it (which was smart).

But to act like it wasn't strategic politicking from the beginning is not correct. Not to say that Biden's pardons are not politicking (they are). Just saying Trump and Biden are the same (and every other politician) when it comes to things like this.

zaccusl··on Why “go nuts, show nuts” doesn’t work in 2022
Can you name some specific people cheering the riots and destruction? FYI, there were literally millions of protesters across the US and only a tint fraction caused damage.

The two are not at all equal. A sitting congressperson supporting BLM protests is not the same thing as a sitting congressperson openly encouraging and even participating in overthrowing a free election.

No matter how much the right wants it, the two situations are not even close to being equal.

zaccusl··on Ask HN: Working in tech for climate?
Can two thing not be true?

1. the climate has always changed. 2. the rate of change depends on a lot things, among them how much green house gases exist in the atmosphere.

You have to have a pretty poor understanding of science to deny either one.

zaccusl··on Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse
What are some examples of them being anti-American or passing misinformation?
zaccusl··on The local news crisis is deepening America's divides
Why link to an opinion piece by an author with a known right-wing bias? The article was paywalled but the fact that it is an opinion peace and the biased reputation of the author makes it suspect.
zaccusl··on Life is not short
It absolutely matters what other people believe if they also want to make laws and rules based on those beliefs.
zaccusl··on Japan asteroid probe finds 23 amino acids, researchers confirm
Is it really a handwave to say we don't know? Sound pretty logical as opposed to just making something up or parroting some origin story like people have been doing for 1000s of years.
zaccusl··on A prank cursor resulted in an employee being fired before they started (2020)
This is what so many people miss.

Any time you have power over the public (e.g., a cop), or present yourself as an expert in a way the affects the public (e.g., a medical doctor, civil engineer, politician) then by default you should be held to a much higher standard than the general public. There should be very little room for error or mistake and all errors/mistakes should be scrutinized for malpractice. The burden should be on the expert to prove they are qualified and should be allowed ("licensed") to hold the position.

If you can't handle that then find another profession.

zaccusl··on U.S. inflation reached a new four-decade high of 8.6% in May
Why? If Republicans control congress what will be different? Is the US going to be the only country in the world to get inflation under control? Is the GOP that good? What are their solutions (serious question)? Because all I here is "CRT bad" and "don't say gay". I never hear anything proposed to solve any of this.
zaccusl··on How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare
"No one thinks this will result in a federal abortion ban"

Nope, anybody paying attention thinks this will result in a federal ban.

Conservatives are already calling for a senate majority to specifically apply a 6 week abortion ban nation wide. And that is just the start.

zaccusl··on How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare
"So the legal question is whether a baby that hasn't yet been born is a person"

That's not the important question. The question is can one person be compelled to use their body to sustain another persons life. We can't even force DEAD people to use their body to sustain life (i.e., a person has to consent to donate organs before they die).

zaccusl··on How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare
This is a fallacious argument until you grapple with the reality that no HUMAN has the right to use another HUMAN to sustain life. It doesn't matter if a person is a fully grown adult that can cure cancer and world hunger, or a 1 year child. That person does not have the right to use another person to sustain their own life under any circumstances.

You are arguing a strawman. The question is not if the fetus is "human" or "life".

zaccusl··on Things that used to be hard and are now easy
I don't understand why this is complex? We know that Promise.all completes on the first error. That's literally the most basic knowledge of Promise.all (it either completes when all promises resolve, or rejects on the first error).

You only need to understand basic JS to know why this doesn't work. You don't need to know anything about the microtask queue or event loop.

Or am I missing something?

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