deathcakes

Yes and when was the last time a reigning monarch exercised those powers? The answer is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Militia_Bill

Wikipedia disagrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuke

As do I, I personally have never heard someone refer to a nuclear fission power plant as a nuke, but I guess I don't hang around with the same people as you...

I agree with this - I was making the point that austerity, by the terms of its own argument, hasn't worked. Reducing public spending has demonstrably not reduced our debt burden even before the pandemic, and so therefore I would suggest we abandon it.

I'm genuinely curious to the reasoning behind austerity - I confess to not having any academic qualifications in economics but it does seem to me that deliberately removing services from the poorer sections of society is going to introduce more friction to the system, which will lead to poorer outcomes in general. The fact that our public debt continued to soar, even before the pandemic, seems to me to suggest that even on its own terms it wasn't a winning argument.

Do you have any sources that make the argument for austerity? This is a genuine question - as I say I have no formal background in the subject but from what I've managed to find I have found little in the way of convinvcing arguments.

No indeed, let us continue to double down on austerity, given its truly astonishing success so far

They actually have already - PyTorch works straight up with ROCm, and so does Tensorflow. There is a little faffing to do to get it to work but they've made great progress in the last six months.

No sure, just you have strongly dismissive opinions of someone you mockingly refer to as a mere blog author, and I felt I had to weigh in. I confess I definitely don't know nearly as much as I'd like about the ancient world, especially not to the extent of having read the primary sources but I feel like you're missing the point of people's reactions.

I think the underlying point is that you actually can learn more about the ancient world despite not necessarily possesing any more primary source knowledge - things can be inferred, close analysis can change perspectives and so on.

I know it isn't the point you're trying to make but you sound like you're trying to dismiss the entire premise of historical research. Like, we don't have any new information (which is patently false by the way, maybe not so relevant to this particular topic but new information comes to light pretty much daily) so therefore we should simply not think about it anymore. I'm not trying to be dismissive of your argument and you clearly feel quite strongly about it.

Do you think all historical research is bunk or just this argument?

To this particular point, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartiate would seem to suggest (admittedly poorly cited) that there was in fact a distinction made within Spartan society between free and enslaved Spartans.

The only reference it sources is confusingly Xenophon, who you have admonished others for not reading - I confess I haven't myself, so will do some digging!

Herodotus made a hell of a lot up, relied on oral reports and explicitly states that none of what he writes is intended to be relied on - it is merely what people told him. I think you actually need to read the linked blog that you seem so dismissive of, and come up with some substantive rebuttals to the points he makes rather than just making this rather lame appeal to historical authority.

They aren't synonyms, though they are related concepts: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10459/what-is-th...

I admit the distinction got me at first as it is quite a subtle one but the point made by the parent commenter is valid.

Which I recall being touted as one of the major advantages of systemd - specifically that binary log files would make for much easier log aggregation as it would be more efficient to send over the wire. Fast forward to today and the best way of shipping logs is to force journald to output to, uh, text, then wring it through, yes thats right, syslog, to then be sent to a central server...

M62 Song by Doves is a good one

"In the long term this will lead to novel types of assets, and make ownership extremely liquid. Imagine using your phone to buy shares in a recording artist you just discovered, and selling those shares when they win a grammy."

I'm sorry but I really totally fail to see what is appealing about this future hellscape where literally every aspect of our lives is transacted, monetised and profitable. What is good about this? Why is this something to aim for?

Voynich Manuscript as Lorem Ipsum is my favourite theory so far!

Oh no, I fully agree with you - in a normal organisation that respects operating according to the burden of responsibility placed on it, reporting these things would be a duty. As things stand, it is seen as betrayal of the 'brotherhood' which is why it needs to be brought down.

I would report someone in my company who attacked someone else with no provocation. Or murdered someone.

I don't think this comparison is as good as you think it is.

"University-educated people in my social circle are often woefully unaware of economic trends that have swept the US, be it the gig economy, X-as-a-service, the nature of Venture Capital, the idea of scaling a company aggressively, the value of information, mobility of labor and paying market rate for experts, the high profit margins of offering a software product vs. (for example) doing one-off consulting for a German industrial company, etc."

I know you caveat all this with the fact that we aren't necessarily worse off (I say we but am British - I will always think of myself as European though) but I would argue that the fact the Europe has been behind the curve on any of these "innovations" is because society is less obsessed with the quick buck and that this is good. None of these financial/technological innovations have provably made life better for anyone apart from VC's and founders, though I am willing to entertain counterpoints.

This, exactly this - I remember one of the most bandied about reasons for the binary log format was that it made replication over the network easier, or something.

Fast forward 10 years and I still cannot find a reliable way to do this with journald, apart from forcing it to output to syslogd and then shipping the syslog logs.

I would refer you to New Zealand which has, last time I checked, had one infection and zero fatalities. Sure this is not "preventing any infections" but I would argue that the rounding error on this is sufficient to make the claim that some governments have reacted well and the United States government has not. Of course NZ has several advantages geographically, but they also have a competent government that was willing to take proactive action.

s/probably//

I've recently made the switch to VimFX as a result of this and I have to say I couldn't be happier - it may not have some of the more powerful features (that I'm unaware of) but it definitely gets the job done.

And of course tax law has been the same since the dawn of time, there can be no argument to brook with the idea that it currently does not work.

Morals musn't enter this argument, it would muddy the waters too much.

You're quite right, my apologies, I saw a thing and wrote a response to something you hadn't said.

I suppose I mean to say that this is the thing really - income tax on its own is not working, evidently, given that it is so easily avoided. Surely the idea is that everyone should want to commit as much as they can to the furtherment of their community, nation and species. The very fact that things like this, game-theoretic winner-take-all, tax "avoidance" (because it's legal, therefore morally fine), exist is enough to make me wonder if there is any point at all to my existence, let alone the existence of the poor sods who aren't fortunate to make even as much as I.

But then I strongly suspect I'm a lefty pinko communist and shouldn't be trusted in a proper discussion about actual fiscal policy.

I would have to disagree almost entirely - their ability to pay is why they are being asked to. This much is basic economics, I should have thought. Someone who has no more to give cannot, and there is little point asking.

Most of the wealth == most of the taxes. This is justified in a basic arithmetical sense.

Nor does the book as a matter of fact. Having recently rewatched the film with my girlfriend who had not seen it I felt compelled to explain, in far less eloquent fashion than Sevrene has in this very thread, that well, what the fuck else would it look like? This is the culmination of mans contact with being(s) of godlike intelligence and apprehension. Would you expect that experience to make sense? Or be translatable?

"To add an example for clarity, think of the field of typography — until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. But with new programs like Microsoft Word coming into existence, typography (e.g. formatting a document, setting the margins, making sure the lettering is appealing, etc.) became something everyone could do easily without much thinking."

Without much thinking pretty much encapsulates what Word did to presentation standards, at least in my experience. Let us never forget WordArt.

Part of me always wants to make the argument that these things are difficult, not just because of an abstract syntax and arcane rules, but because these things are genuinely difficult to reason about - attempts to make difficult things easier by papering over the cracks results in a lot of pain for a lot of people. Bits ping off and people are left unable to even begin to solve the problem.

However the very, very, obvious flipside of this is that lowering barriers to entry is pretty much always a good thing. It invites unconventional perspectives and novel approaches - how could that be a bad thing? Sure, some people will make crappy things that shouldn't have ever existed but by the same token some people will make great things that never would have been without the lowered barriers.

Jumping off a cliff != certain death, but I guess thats splitting hairs. You seem very confident in the face of expert opinion and evidence in front of you. Does the fact that the people who have masterminded this spectacle seem to have no plan for what happens next worry you in the slightest?

I notice you use England, possibly a mistake but it seems this is the underlying attitude of the Leave vote - England is better off by itself. Which strikes me as frankly hilarious given how much we have to offer the world besides grumpiness, self deprecation and financial services...