NoblePath's recent activity

  1. Comment on Can you recommend tv shows with themes of grit, endurance, survival under hostile circumstances? in ~tv

    NoblePath
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    Kung Fu and Roots for some classics.

    Kung Fu and Roots for some classics.

    1 vote
  2. Comment on Besides Shawshank Redemption, what films do you like that feature grit, resilience, endurance under hostile circumstances? in ~movies

    NoblePath
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    Bad News Bears.

    Bad News Bears.

  3. Comment on Restaurants close across China in ~food

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    Low effort comment maybe, but this is a hilarious to me apple translation from the moegirl site: Read more: https://zh.moegirl.org.cn/Mainpage This article is quoted from Meng Niang Encyclopedia...

    Low effort comment maybe, but this is a hilarious to me apple translation from the moegirl site:

    Although I am a white dolphin nobleman, because I have memories of my previous life, I am raising my weak younger brother" will be adapted into a TV animation and will be broadcast in July 2025

    Read more: https://zh.moegirl.org.cn/Mainpage
    This article is quoted from Meng Niang Encyclopedia (https://zh.moegirl.org.cn), and the text content defaults to the "Knowledge Sharing Attribution-Non-Commercial Use-Share Alike 3.0 Mainland China" agreement.

    2 votes
  4. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    These are all good points, and after considering them, I'm forced to agree that the NYT times reporting at least is suspect, and also probably the CIA, but . . . I think it would actually be the...

    These are all good points, and after considering them, I'm forced to agree that the NYT times reporting at least is suspect, and also probably the CIA, but . . .

    I think it would actually be the proper role of the CIA to ascertain the date that China and other actors have hidden, obfuscated, altered, etc. And also to analyze and hopefully disseminate it so we could do the really useful, human-protective work of figuring out what really did happen and resolve it.

    4 votes
  5. Comment on How Carl Schmitt, a German thinker relates to US MAGA concepts of right and wrong, good and bad in ~society

    NoblePath
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    Great essay, and saying a lot of what I was trying to communicate in my controversial explanation of my recent bend toward Christianity. And I agree whole-heartedly. Without an external pressure...

    Great essay, and saying a lot of what I was trying to communicate in my controversial explanation of my recent bend toward Christianity.

    And I agree whole-heartedly. Without an external pressure to embody virtue, any group of people is bound to disintegrate and it becomes chaotic and cruel. In Biblical terms, everyone does "what is right in their own eyes."

    I have only a glancing familiarity with Thelema. I wonder how a Thelemite scholar would respond to this essay and responds to the current political reality in the U.S.?

    4 votes
  6. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    Some people did just claim whatever fit in their mind, that is true. However, that doesn't mean that sober people can't or shouldn't explore all relevant lines of inquiry. As the maxim goes,...

    Some people did just claim whatever fit in their mind, that is true.

    However, that doesn't mean that sober people can't or shouldn't explore all relevant lines of inquiry. As the maxim goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I'm also wary of claims of absolute claims like "zero." Proximity of a lab that is performing research on viruses remarkably similar to covid19 to earliest identified cases is not conclusive, but it is inferential evidence that warrants a close look.

    But my complaint was not about people challenging conclusions being made based purely on speculation. Instead, people categorically excluded any line of inquiry regarding the lab with an almost religious fervor. In light of the extensive trove of data deliberately removed from view, there is not anywhere close to sufficient evidence for natural origins to exclude alternate possibilities. That said, weakness in the data under review doesn't automatically exclude it either. As was said above, the real answer (based on publicly available information) right now is "we don't know, but it the natural origin model has some supporting evidence."

    6 votes
  7. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    NoblePath
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    If I could push back some. As a former research scientist in epidemiology and biostatistics, every dimension of the pandemic is interesting to study and useful to advancing the state of our...

    If I could push back some.

    As a former research scientist in epidemiology and biostatistics, every dimension of the pandemic is interesting to study and useful to advancing the state of our knowledge about many things. More importantly, understanding as much as we can about this global phenomenon are crucial to responding more effectively to the next one.

    It's unfortunate that politics has played such a role in this pandemic, but that's a function of humanity in general. This particular story, however, is not strictly political. As TFA and my first post pointed out, the origins, and much of the research effort, involved in this conclusory shift was completed under Biden.

    It's a very important question to answer about how, where, and whether we should perform high-risk science. No relevant data should be excluded or occluded, and no plausible, meaningful idea left unexplored.

    Edit: I'll add, it is important to be honest and humble about the level of our knowledge. There is no such thing as certainty in any endeavor, and you're right that it serves no good purpose to pretend we have an answer when we don't. However, debate and inquiry should proceed on an issue as important as this (which is literally life and death).

    9 votes
  8. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    There’s some practical reasons for this. One is supplies and infrastructure, although that is manageable for a price. Another is attracting talent to work in that environment. Many might do that...

    There’s some practical reasons for this. One is supplies and infrastructure, although that is manageable for a price. Another is attracting talent to work in that environment. Many might do that short term for the right compensation, but finding qualified researcher who probably want to have families…

    6 votes
  9. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    Thank you so much for validating this point. It was so frustrating to me how otherwise smart people couldn’t even entertain the notion of a lab leak or separate lab leak/natural origin from...

    Thank you so much for validating this point. It was so frustrating to me how otherwise smart people couldn’t even entertain the notion of a lab leak or separate lab leak/natural origin from bioweapon claims. It was an awful time in so many ways though to be sure.

    7 votes
  10. Comment on US CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid’s origins in ~health

    NoblePath
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    Byline: I’m as suspect of Trump as anybody, and similarly the CIA under any administration. But broken clock and twice a day etc. My review of the published reports does not indicate that the...

    Byline:

    A new analysis that began under the Biden administration is released by the C.I.A.’s new director, John Ratcliffe, who wants the agency to get “off the sidelines” in the debate.

    I’m as suspect of Trump as anybody, and similarly the CIA under any administration. But broken clock and twice a day etc.

    My review of the published reports does not indicate that the natural origins theory is more likely or somehow scientifically validated. I think it’s best to say that most analyses of available data align with a model of natural origin and pandemic epicenter centered on the market. A glaring error in judment when accepting this consensus as reflective of reality is discounting the extensive data intentionally obscured by the Chinese government.

    I have been saddened by the dogmatic resistance to human-agent origins among the nerd class. It’s certainly a shift from a generation or two previously. I call it the Y-files problem, after the 90’s show the X-files, when most among the technically inclined were skeptical of institutional motivations[1] and open to exploring, still skeptically, alternative explanations of phenomena. This shift probably happened, or perhaps climaxed, when Art Bell retired.

    My one ask to anyone inclined to respond to this: please distinguish between the various models accurately and precisely:

    totally natural orgin: virus evolved in nature, traveled to market by organic means, jumped to humans
    natural origin, accidental leak: lab was studying natural virus which accidentally escaped probably to the market
    natural origin, intentional deployment
    technical origin, accidental leak: lab performed ‘gain of function’ technique or equivalent on the virus
    technical origin, intentional deployment: aka the Three Body Problem model (in the book, maybe the second one in the series? Some bad agency’s solution to a tricky assassination is to devise a virus which is lethal only to their target, and for everyone else completely harmless but very contagious, which quickly spreads to the few people who interact with the target and infect him.

    p.s. There might be a realpolitik reason for pretending to the natural origin nature of the virus. I just long for a space where we don’t have to pretend to buy into it, and can discuss it’s merits directly.

    p.p.s. please note I did not include a politics tag, as the agency began developing this position while Biden was still president

    [1] I understand there is debate around institutions, and am personally moving cautiously toward a more conservative position: Institutions are very valuable to making the world a more pleasant place to be, but only when they are subject to a high degree of porosity, transparency, and accountability.

    8 votes
  11. Comment on Live updates of day one executive orders / actions taken by US President Donald Trump in ~society

    NoblePath
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    Not that it matter much in a system hell bent on abuse, but arrest requires probable cause, a more involved standard than reasonable suspicion. The system has always had bias and abuse, mostly...

    Not that it matter much in a system hell bent on abuse, but arrest requires probable cause, a more involved standard than reasonable suspicion.

    The system has always had bias and abuse, mostly against black folks, but in saner times there was a reasonable correlation between arrest (as opposed to simply a stop) and guilt.

    9 votes
  12. Comment on Apple Intelligence doesn't work the way I want it to in ~tech

    NoblePath
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    Just as an aside, Siri used to be much better. It could do more and answer more questions without resorting to the web and had a connection to the Wolffram Alpha API. I assume the loss of Wolf...

    Just as an aside, Siri used to be much better. It could do more and answer more questions without resorting to the web and had a connection to the Wolffram Alpha API. I assume the loss of Wolf from the alpha was some kind of licensing thing, but I could never understand why or how it lost so much of its basic functionality especially as compared to Google and Alexa.

    29 votes
  13. Comment on US$ 30 million to reinvent the wheel (Bluesky vs. Mastodon) in ~tech

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    Because marketing requires some skills. This is a problem with a great many open source type projects. The engineers are often brilliant and wonderfully-hearted, but they think like engineers at...

    Because marketing requires some skills.

    This is a problem with a great many open source type projects. The engineers are often brilliant and wonderfully-hearted, but they think like engineers at times they and their projects would be better served to think like communications students.

    I don’t know how to solve the problem, but it’s a major barrier to widespread adoption.

    19 votes
  14. Comment on CES 2025 in ~tech

    NoblePath
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    Second this, high dpi monitors just don’t exist outside apple, and sub 32” don’t seem tonexist at all. I keep my old imac m1 24” (4500k they call it, 219 dpi i think) and use it a lot simply...

    Second this, high dpi monitors just don’t exist outside apple, and sub 32” don’t seem tonexist at all. I keep my old imac m1 24” (4500k they call it, 219 dpi i think) and use it a lot simply because i can’t find acceptable monitors for my macbook.

    Hell, I’d consider paying like 80% the imac price, maybe full price, for an equivalently specced monitor.

  15. Comment on Google’s ad policy changes to allow device fingerprinting in ~tech

    NoblePath
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    Adblockers aren’t enough tonstop fingerprinting though, right? You have to use a browser that reports only generic or null information to the requestor. Which means no javascript, and not even...

    Adblockers aren’t enough tonstop fingerprinting though, right? You have to use a browser that reports only generic or null information to the requestor.

    Which means no javascript, and not even slashdot looks ok without javascript these days.

    12 votes
  16. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~health

    NoblePath
    (edited )
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    That’s very sage advice, I’m glad you shared. But I mis-parsed your last sentence and spent an unfortunate amount of time pondering how I might change my measures of success after each poop. Edit:...

    That’s very sage advice, I’m glad you shared.

    But I mis-parsed your last sentence and spent an unfortunate amount of time pondering how I might change my measures of success after each poop.

    Edit: this comment meant for amusement purposes only

    Edit2: apropoop https://www.sciencealert.com/pooping-before-you-exercise-has-an-incredible-effect-on-performance?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

    8 votes
  17. Comment on Pornhub is now blocked in almost all of the US South in ~tech

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    I’m a parent. I have enough time and money to parent-but that’s a privilege. Many parents do not. Even with sufficient time and money, I cannot watch my kids’ every move, and I don’t believe that...

    I’m a parent. I have enough time and money to parent-but that’s a privilege. Many parents do not.

    Even with sufficient time and money, I cannot watch my kids’ every move, and I don’t believe that would be healthy.

    I bleived even before I wanted kids that it really does take a whole community working together to raise healthy kids, which in turn benefits the whole community.

    This law may be ineffective and have unintended consequences, I don’t know. But I do know we ought to have society wide guardrails to protect the vulnerable (including most children, but not just them) when they cannot protect themselves.

    Kids will do some stupid things with innocent intentions. And they don’t always have the means to properly contextualize what they experience. And that’s with “good”, involved parents.

    9 votes
  18. Comment on Pornhub is now blocked in almost all of the US South in ~tech

    NoblePath
    Link Parent
    This might work at the kid’s house, but what about a friend’s house? Or a friend’s phone? Or any of a myriad other circumstances outside your control?

    This might work at the kid’s house, but what about a friend’s house? Or a friend’s phone? Or any of a myriad other circumstances outside your control?

    1 vote
  19. Comment on Pornhub is now blocked in almost all of the US South in ~tech

    NoblePath
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    There are many children who have no parent available to help, educate, or set limits for them. As @lou said, no law or technical feature will 100% prevent access. But do we really want those kids...

    There are many children who have no parent available to help, educate, or set limits for them. As @lou said, no law or technical feature will 100% prevent access. But do we really want those kids to have unfettered access to porn? Guns? Drugs?

    Even for kids with decent parents, social restrictions are still needed

    Communities benefit tremendously from healthy children growing into healthy adults, and suffer grievously from unhealthy kids and unhealthy adults. Communities can and should have a sizeable hand in supporting parents and raising g kids.

    Edit: also, if you think parents should be restricted from having children unless they meet criteria, we should probably have a different, more urgent conversation.

    2 votes