Fal's recent activity

  2. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

    Fal
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    CNN: Man charged with theft after allegedly swallowing Fabergé egg

    CNN: Man charged with theft after allegedly swallowing Fabergé egg

    Police in New Zealand have charged a man with theft after he allegedly stole a jewel-encrusted gold Fabergé egg locket from a jewelers by picking it up and swallowing it.

    The unusual incident occurred on Friday afternoon at a store in central Auckland, according to a statement from Inspector Grae Anderson, Auckland Central Area Commander at New Zealand Police, sent to CNN on Tuesday.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on The turf war for Seattle in ~transport

    Fal
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    A well-done debut video by AV8 about the turf war between Alaskan Airlines and Delta Airlines occurring in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, almost a decade after the two companies ended one...

    A well-done debut video by AV8 about the turf war between Alaskan Airlines and Delta Airlines occurring in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, almost a decade after the two companies ended one of the closest partnerships in the airline industry.

    7 votes

  6. Comment on Which grand strategy are you? in ~misc

    Fal
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    What would a progressive grand strategy look like to you? IR is generally kind of a conservative (not in the US politics way, mostly) field, so I’m curious to hear about other alternatives

    What would a progressive grand strategy look like to you? IR is generally kind of a conservative (not in the US politics way, mostly) field, so I’m curious to hear about other alternatives

    3 votes

  7. Comment on Which grand strategy are you? in ~misc

    Fal
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    Definitely not the only strats, and you're right that it would be better if it wasn't so black and white (though to be fair, this quiz was designed as a fun introduction to a lecture)....

    I think this would be a more interesting quiz if it wasn't so black or white. If you could rank the answers and then get scored that way, with some other categories of strategies. That said, I don't know much about IR grand strategies, so maybe these are the only strats.

    Definitely not the only strats, and you're right that it would be better if it wasn't so black and white (though to be fair, this quiz was designed as a fun introduction to a lecture). Practically, the only people who strictly adhere to just one of the categories are likely going to be academics or single-issue debaters, not many policymakers are that ideologically principled. For instance, I got 5 selective engagement 4 liberal hegemony; much less adherent to selective engagement principles than my test result suggests.

    7 votes

  8. Comment on Which grand strategy are you? in ~misc

    Fal
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    A personality quiz made by my international security TA for fun. Placed this in ~misc since the grand strategy branch of IR is pretty academic and theoretical, but maybe belongs in ~society. I got...

    A personality quiz made by my international security TA for fun. Placed this in ~misc since the grand strategy branch of IR is pretty academic and theoretical, but maybe belongs in ~society.

    I got selective/deep engagement

    10 votes

  10. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

  11. Comment on The Game Awards 2025 nominations in ~games

    Fal
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    By my count, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is nominated for an incredible 10 categories (although I am counting all 3 Clair Obscur nominations for Best Performance as 1). I'm guesing GOTY will be a...

    By my count, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is nominated for an incredible 10 categories (although I am counting all 3 Clair Obscur nominations for Best Performance as 1). I'm guesing GOTY will be a competition between Clair Obscur and Silksong.

    6 votes

  13. Comment on Hungary vs Ireland highlights | FIFA World Cup 26 qualifier in ~sports.football

    Fal
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    Absolutely insane finish to this game. Congrats to Troy Parrott for an incredible hat trick (as well as scoring 2 goals in Ireland's win over Portugal last week). Best of luck to Ireland in the...

    Absolutely insane finish to this game. Congrats to Troy Parrott for an incredible hat trick (as well as scoring 2 goals in Ireland's win over Portugal last week). Best of luck to Ireland in the playoffs

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Generational goalgetter Erling Haaland will get a crack at his first major tournament next summer, after leading Norway to the World Cup in ~sports.football

    Fal
    Link Parent
    No paywall for me

    No paywall for me

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

    Fal
    Link
    Woman pleads guilty to lying about astronaut wife accessing bank account from Space Station

    Woman pleads guilty to lying about astronaut wife accessing bank account from Space Station

    A former Air Force intelligence officer has pleaded guilty to lying to a federal agent by falsely claiming that her estranged astronaut wife illegally accessed her bank account while aboard the International Space Station for six months, prosecutors in Houston, Texas, said Friday.

    The guilty plea by Summer Worden, 50, on Thursday comes more than five years after she was indicted in the space case for lying about actions by her wife, Anne McClain, a U.S. Army colonel, West Point graduate and Iraq war combat veteran, while they were in the midst of a divorce.

    Worden in July “alleged her estranged spouse had guessed the password and illegally accessed her bank account while the spouse was deployed to the International Space Station,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said in a statement headlined “Far Out” on Friday.

    9 votes

  17. Comment on UC San Diego sees students’ math skills plummet in ~society

    Fal
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    Given that its 1 in 8 students at UCSD requiring remedial courses, this is possibly the answer. Also worth noting though that when you apply to the UCs submitting your SAT scores is optional, and...

    Is this a case of the SAT getting easier, or that lower 25% really cratering and struggling?

    Given that its 1 in 8 students at UCSD requiring remedial courses, this is possibly the answer.

    Also worth noting though that when you apply to the UCs submitting your SAT scores is optional, and I'd imagine if you got low scores you'd be less inclined to submit them, even though they don't impact admission.

    7 votes

  18. Comment on UC San Diego sees students’ math skills plummet in ~society

    Fal
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    Oh hey that's my university (and @ducc's as well I believe). This report isn't too common knowledge so far, unless you're active on the UCSD subreddit. For people who do know about it though, the...

    Oh hey that's my university (and @ducc's as well I believe). This report isn't too common knowledge so far, unless you're active on the UCSD subreddit. For people who do know about it though, the response is largely a mix of disappointment in the damage to the school's reputation, and calls for the UC system to start requiring SAT scores for applications again.

    6 votes

  20. Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Anecdotally, its translation abilities seem to be pretty solid for the more straightforward and formal language in the documents I use, and since these models have scraped basically the entire...

    Anecdotally, its translation abilities seem to be pretty solid for the more straightforward and formal language in the documents I use, and since these models have scraped basically the entire internet (including CCP government websites, Xinhua, People's Daily, etc.) with some prodding it can create entire corpuses of 30+ relevant government documents or announcements that would be a pain to try to pull together by hand. Obviously double check everything because there is a dud in there once in a while, but its still a major time save.

    1 vote