Yeah, okay I’ll grant that.

That one doesn’t bother me quite as much, just because it relies on some finer numbers regarding the structural properties of materials, that people won’t realistically have day-to-day experience with. They have to trust sources, which I do understand people sometimes being reluctant to do for whatever reason.

The concept of heat accumulation in an enclosed space is something everyone has experienced, though. If they have cooked, or gotten into a car in the summer, or any other manner of experiences, they should realize how it works with just a minute or less of thinking. If you contain heat, say, inside of a building, it can build up. Simple as that. Very intuitive, can be fully understood by even a small child. These folks would understand it too, if they just thought about it for a second instead of just believing randos on the internet who are appealing to their feelings.

This one is the most annoying for me. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of heat, where a person clearly doesn’t understand that heat can accumulate regardless of where it comes from.

It’s like saying a garden hose cannot fill up a swimming pool because the mouth of the garden hose isn’t as big as the pool.

Informative article. Also liked this earlier one that was linked within this article, going into the challenges of different ways to secure artists livlihoods:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/02/ai-will-never-fit-into-a-licensing-regime/

I mean, yeah, of course. Their unpreparedness is exactly what their audience likes most about them. It comes across as “authentic”, where this influencer is “just like me”. It’s not like the audience has thoroughly researched whatever topic is under discussion. This is the source of Joe Rogan’s power, half the time he literally just pulls out his phone and googles stuff on the spot, even with all the potential pit-falls that comes with.

A whowouldwin community.

Battleboarding communities draw a lot of engagement and help retain new users among the younger demographics.

In a world where trolling was done as a recreational activity, this was a good strategy. This is not that world anymore, though, this is a world where right wing fight clubs are popping up in dozens of countries. Trolls are no longer recreational, they’re trying to slowly and gradually change the world in their image.

You’ve never needed everyone for something, that’s unrealistic. A village doesn’t require the exact same behavior from all people to function smoothly, and any such bottleneck would create weaknesses anyway. You just need that to be the prevailing culture.

They’re not serving Wagyu anywhere else on their menu, that I recall seeing anyway.

Surprisingly reasonable for a slightly upscale LA joint. Only issue is … who the fuck in their right mind would waste actual Wagyu beef in some chili? You can put almost any beef in chili, nobody will notice because it’s fully submersed in a stew that tastes like chili. So why use the most expensive beef on the planet for it? Unless it’s just fake Wagyu, which tbf, I guess it probably is at that price point. Still a dumb marketing gimmick to anyone that knows anything about beef.

Guacamole.

Avocado, a metric fuckton of cilantro, diced roma tomato, diced white onion, a modest amount of minced tomatillo (“secret ingredient” #1), a lot of lime juice, a hefty amount of garlic run through a microplane, salt and a pinch of cumin (“secret ingredient” #2).

Not kidding on the metric fuckton part, this almost (but not quite, I am exaggerating) comes together less like a traditional guac and more like a cilantro salad dressed in mashed avocado. It slays though, I make huge batches and seldom see it unfinished.

Actual ratio by mass of the finished product … it’s maybe 60% avocado? With the rest being all the other ingredients put together.

Na na naaah nah, na na naaah nah, hey hey heyy, goood-byyeee…

No clue why, was just in my head this morning for some unknowable reason. I did not hear the song at all over the past couple days that I can remember.

I’m not sure the cauldron strategy is as viable as it was in the past. This isn’t the Red Army of Stalin’s day, this army retreats en masse when you shatter its lines, as we saw in the Kharkiv offensive a couple years ago.

Do their missiles and big drones have inertial guidance? If not, more jamming systems could work really well.

The big challenge is the multiple entrenched lines of Russian defense. Minefields covered by artillery and drones are difficult to penetrate, especially when you have to pierce several in a row.

It’s good to see more tanks going, having more materiel is better than having less materiel. But I’d also like to see more pledges of aircraft. The jets have been doing good, important work, and we do have more that we can give.

Ultimately the war is never going to be won by some huge Ukrainian ground push to Moscow or something though. It’ll be won by slowly grinding the Russian war economy down, somewhat similar to how Germany was defeated in WW1. Turns out these full-scale war things are horrendously resource-intensive, and nobody gets infinite resources… I think the Russian wealth fund is down to less than half its liquid assets, if I remember right?

debating the best way to chop an onion

I get their point, but this is one of the few things I’ve actually never seen debated. Your options are very limited by the shape you want the finished product in.

Thinking about hammering in a screw puts a very serious frown on my face…

Upvote for creativity though.

Pumped up by huge state spending on soldiers and weapons, as well as by redirecting vital energy exports to the likes of China and India, Russia’s economy has so far defied Western hopes sanctions would push it into a deep recession.

This line is annoying. You think people couldn’t predict that Putin would keep his war machine afloat with the huge backstock of cash they had saved up? Of course he would.

The goal is to drain it over time, like any other reserve of resources. Nobody serious about the topic expected the sanctions to suddenly destroy the Russian economy. The goal was to make things more expensive, to apply pressure that would weaken them over time. This is why you haven’t seen many Western analysts predicting a swift Russian collapse, because that was not very likely when they had billions and billions saved up that could and would be deployed. The question is: how long can they keep up this demanding of a pace, when they’re dealing with finite resources and limited inflows? That second part on limiting inflows is what the sanctions are part of.

Modern war planners mostly know better than to count on everything going well.

To add to this, N Korea also has a huge conventional army, and is a very mountainous country. Lots of soldiers+mountains=very bloody to invade.

This is also why Iran is fairly safe from ground invasion. It’s like a gigantic Switzerland, which if you’re familiar with WW2 history, even Hitler left Switzerland alone despite kinda wanting to occupy the place. The cost was just too high compared to the benefits, so, y’know, may as well skip it and invade the USSR instead.

This works, but the quicker method for me was to hold the book over my head, out of my line of sight while I focused my eyes on something a little farther away (a few feet away is fine). Then you can simply move the book downward into your field of vision while refusing to let your eyes refocus. It should be blurry, because you’re still focusing past it, despite it being right in front of your face. Then just relax and let your brain do the work.

This method got by far the quickest and most reliable results for me, most pop suddenly into view in just a couple seconds.

I think this method works best because you’re using established muscle memory to focus your eyes on an object at a measurable, consistent distance, and then just not letting them change. Removes several variables from the equation.