R3qn65's recent activity
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Comment on Sydney Sweeney’s Hollywood career just got a whole lot more complicated in ~movies
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Comment on How schools deny advanced math to their highest-scoring students in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentIt's in the American South, so it would be comically naive to say that racism doesn't have anything to do with it. There's got to be more to it than that, though, right? I think it's reasonable to...It's in the American South, so it would be comically naive to say that racism doesn't have anything to do with it.
There's got to be more to it than that, though, right? I think it's reasonable to assume that there are also more benign (but still destructive) reasons for the inertia of the system. Imagine a teacher who is imperfect, but really cares about their students and has spent 20 years trying to help them succeed. What if that teacher is presented with data showing that they've been going about things all wrong, that minorities are being dramatically under supported, and that everything they've been doing needs to change? It's easy to understand -- even if it's bad! -- how such a teacher could find it nearly impossible to believe and would instead dig their heels in with a thousand invented explanations as to why what they've been doing is the right solution.
We see this in all kinds of fields. It's really hard for humans to grapple with the realization that we've been doing something bad or believed something wrong.
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Comment on At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a math mystery in ~science
R3qn65 Link ParentYeah, that's great. As are the little drawings on her graph paper in the photo of her presenting her proof. Good for her for having the confidence to forge her own path instead of getting shunted...Yeah, that's great. As are the little drawings on her graph paper in the photo of her presenting her proof.
Good for her for having the confidence to forge her own path instead of getting shunted to undergrad because that's normal.
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Comment on What useful licenses or certifications are surprisingly cheap and easy to get? in ~talk
R3qn65 Link ParentPivoting off this, many fire stations and similar locales offer stop the bleed courses. In the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military found that of combat deaths that were ultimately...Pivoting off this, many fire stations and similar locales offer stop the bleed courses. In the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military found that of combat deaths that were ultimately preventable, had the soldiers taken the right actions, more than half were due to bleeding from an extremity. You can learn how to stop critical bleeding and save lives!
CPR is super important, but most people will see more car accidents than cardiac arrests. And finally, learning how to properly apply a tourniquet might save your own life.
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Comment on What are the Epstein files, and how much should you care about them? in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentLol, ouch.Even in their most unconstrained and idealized political fantasies, liberals manage to accomplish nothing.
Lol, ouch.
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Comment on Exercise boosts colon cancer survival in ~health
R3qn65 Link ParentFascinating result, thanks. It's interesting - the main accidents they mention were vehicle accidents, drownings, and homicide. It's not completely crazy to think that fitness could protect you in...Fascinating result, thanks. It's interesting - the main accidents they mention were vehicle accidents, drownings, and homicide. It's not completely crazy to think that fitness could protect you in some ways from vehicle accidents and drownings.
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Comment on Exercise boosts colon cancer survival in ~health
R3qn65 Link ParentYour skepticism is very warranted, but there are reams of well-designed, well-executed studies that control for correlation and still support the notion that exercising is good for you in almost...Your skepticism is very warranted, but there are reams of well-designed, well-executed studies that control for correlation and still support the notion that exercising is good for you in almost every way.
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Comment on Exercise boosts colon cancer survival in ~health
R3qn65 LinkExercise boosts survival of basically everything, even including a huge range of mental health disorders.Exercise boosts survival of basically everything, even including a huge range of mental health disorders.
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Comment on Dating etiquette question in ~life
R3qn65 Link ParentI appreciate the spirit of your post, for sure, but I think it’s pretty lackluster as far as advice goes. To be clear, the teenager-sort-of-stuff like “22 hours is thirsty, 24 hours is too late”...I appreciate the spirit of your post, for sure, but I think it’s pretty lackluster as far as advice goes. To be clear, the teenager-sort-of-stuff like “22 hours is thirsty, 24 hours is too late” is nonsense - I totally agree with you on that one. But in this specific case, OP has waited weeks to reach out to this person. A fair bit depends on the context, here, but assuming it was something normal like they asked for the number and got it, waiting for weeks is unusual and is going to make things harder for them. The person doesn’t have to be a player of games to want to receive a message within a day or two.
@Bet — you waited too long. You may as well reach out in a “you miss every shot you don’t take” sort of spirit… but if you want to maximize success, for future reference the ideal time windows are within a few hours of getting the person’s number (if you don’t know each other at all 1); the next day (if you barely know each other 2); or whenever you want, it doesn’t really matter (if you know each other 3).
1 e.g. you met in line at a coffee shop and spoke for <5 minutes before exchanging numbers.
2 e.g. you met at a party and talked for an hour.
3 e.g. you have mutual friends in common and have kinda-sorta-been-friends for an extended period of time but now, discovering in a pleasant sort of shock that you actually have hella chemistry, have decided to exchange direct numbers rather than simply continuing to run into each other at Melanie’s parties, and also what is going on with her lately, right?
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Comment on Paying for AI: Have you found it to be worth it? in ~tech
R3qn65 Link ParentFor sure. Here's a recent example -- I'd asked Gemini to give me some options for getting into central London during a (very) long layover. Here's what it said (and as far as I can tell,...For sure. Here's a recent example -- I'd asked Gemini to give me some options for getting into central London during a (very) long layover. Here's what it said (and as far as I can tell, everything ended up being correct):
Travel Time to Central London:
- Heathrow Express: This is the fastest option, reaching Paddington Station in 15 minutes. A return ticket costs around £40.00 (or from £10.00 if booked well in advance for a single journey). From Paddington, you can connect to the London Underground (Tube).
- Elizabeth Line: This newer line takes approximately 33-45 minutes to reach central stations like Tottenham Court Road. Prices range from £5-11. It's often a good balance of speed and cost.
- Piccadilly Line (Tube): The most economical option, taking around 45-60 minutes to central locations like Piccadilly Circus or Russell Square. Prices start from £5.50. This can be slower during peak hours.
- Consider peak hours: If your layover falls during London's rush hour (6:00-9:30 AM and 4:30-5:45 PM on weekdays), travel times on the Tube can be longer and trains more crowded.
- Luggage: If you have checked luggage, consider using a luggage storage service at Heathrow (Left Baggage) to avoid dragging it around London.
- Payment: A contactless debit/credit card is the easiest way to pay for public transport (Tube, buses, Elizabeth Line) and many shops/restaurants. You can also purchase an Oyster card.
Unfortunately other trips were more than 90 days ago so it hasn't retained the conversations, but I also found it extremely useful for finding hotels meeting our criteria in a series of cities I fed it based on our itinerary. (An itinerary which I also used Gemini to help craft). I asked it to give me some options for luxury hotels that were still family friendly in [European capital city]; it gave me a few; I asked which was best, and it responded that they were all more or less the same, but one was much closer to a park with a playground. That's legitimately helpful advice, and we ended up staying in that hotel.
Point is, if I just said "give me hotels," it's going to flounder. But giving it some criteria and then asking it to refine works quite well. I've found giving it price points is imperfect, but it does okay.
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Comment on Paying for AI: Have you found it to be worth it? in ~tech
R3qn65 LinkI do. Deep research (in its various iterations) is fantastically useful and I still feel like I'm only scraping the surface of what it could be used for. And using the regular models, as well, has...I do. Deep research (in its various iterations) is fantastically useful and I still feel like I'm only scraping the surface of what it could be used for. And using the regular models, as well, has been helpful, especially if I make an effort to stay in their wheelhouses. Trip planning, for example, can be fantastically helpful. (Models are good at it because it's text based and there's so much data on trips on the internet).
To expand on that a bit: I have always been a good trip planner. I am good at logistics. I can find good information via well-executed searches. And even so, using an LLM makes me more efficient -- really, I think this is the scenario where models add the most value. It's not when you don't know what you're doing, it's when you do know what you're doing, you know what you're looking for, and want to offload very specific tasks to the model.
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Comment on I teach a student with Reactive Attachment Disorder and I need help in ~health.mental
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Comment on Where should I shop for a tuxedo? in ~life.style
R3qn65 LinkGenerally, I'd say yeah, but there are a couple of factors. is a tux a once in a while thing or a once in a lifetime thing? It sounds like the latter, in which case even if it does look at lot...Does a tailored tuxedo look that much better than a rental to justify buying instead of renting?
Generally, I'd say yeah, but there are a couple of factors.
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is a tux a once in a while thing or a once in a lifetime thing? It sounds like the latter, in which case even if it does look at lot better, there's really no reason at all to buy one.
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what is your build? If you have a very athletic build, every rental tux will look like trash on you because the waist won't be right. But if you're average, rentals will be fine.
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what is your sense of style? My sense - and this is totally unchecked, so take it with a grain of salt - is that tux rental places have only very boring peak collar tuxes and absolute nonsense weird colors. If you want a classic midnight blue shawl collar, though, you might be out of luck.
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Comment on The future of forums is lies, I guess in ~tech
R3qn65 Link ParentI think requiring people to put some skin in the game solves a lot of problems. I'll always have fond memories of the golden age of the internet when good discussion was free, but I don't mind...I think requiring people to put some skin in the game solves a lot of problems.
I'll always have fond memories of the golden age of the internet when good discussion was free, but I don't mind paying if it preserves websites that still have that feel.
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Comment on Calgary brings fluoride back to its drinking water in ~health
R3qn65 Link ParentMy guess is that fluoride is one of those interventions that does the most good for the worse-off. Same with iodine, really -- the people brushing their teeth and the people eating a varied diet...My guess is that fluoride is one of those interventions that does the most good for the worse-off. Same with iodine, really -- the people brushing their teeth and the people eating a varied diet are always fine, it's the poor that benefit. (Which is great, obviously).
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Comment on NATO commits to spending hike sought by US President Donald Trump, and to mutual defence in ~society
R3qn65 (edited )Link ParentIt’s both, really. The American Department of Defense’s top two expenses aren’t tanks and fighter jets, they’re training/maintenance/healthcare (those are grouped together) and salaries. Veterans’...It’s both, really. The American Department of Defense’s top two expenses aren’t tanks and fighter jets, they’re training/maintenance/healthcare (those are grouped together) and salaries. Veterans’ benefits are accounted for separately, or that would be #2.
In that way, the military is just like any other organization - people are the biggest expense. So while Europe can reoptimize a bit, there’s no getting around the fact that there simply aren’t enough trained soldiers, there needs to be more, and doing that is expensive.
For Europe specifically, a lot of the initial upfront investments - probably all of them, frankly, with an ongoing need for more - will go towards maintenance. So much of Europe’s materiel is in disrepair or completely nonfunctional. America is not immune from that - America’s navy, for instance, is overtaxed and well short on maintenance - but the sheer stocks that America has mean that it doesn’t suffer in quite the same way. For example,
In a 2015 interview, a former parliamentary commissioner of the German armed forces, Hans-Peter Bartels, revealed that despite each German artillery battalion having twenty-four howitzers on paper, in most batteries, only a small proportion of the artillery pieces were actually operational. Bartels further elaborated that only two battalions in the Heer had what could be considered fully “modern” combat equipment on hand… The 9th Panzerlehr Brigade would most likely be the first heavy combat unit to respond in the outbreak of a real war, but it would likely need to parasitically subsume combat equipment and replacement parts from the rest of the 1st Panzer Division to be fully combat ready.
Or from the UK’s Parliament:
General Sir Nick Carter told us that the Army was the “weakest service” and that it had “significant capability deficiencies”.71 Both Dr Simon Anglim and General Lord Houghton questioned whether the UK could field the heavy division which is committed to NATO without an Ally providing a Brigade.72 Professor Malcolm Chalmers questioned whether any such division could be deployed given that the British Army lacked both equipment and the logistics required to support it.73 Dr Rowan Allport of the Human Security Centre listed the capability resource and readiness shortfalls of the Army which he described as “substantial”. These included…
And Germany and the UK are two of Europe’s best-prepared militaries.
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Comment on NATO commits to spending hike sought by US President Donald Trump, and to mutual defence in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentI think this is a little blasé. Germany has about 200,000 active and reserve military personnel. Ukraine has 2 million men (and women) under arms, and they’re losing - and that’s with basically...Crank that number up to 2 and start using the money more efficiently and the one prospective threat becomes as much of a cake walk as a land war in Asia can ever get.
I think this is a little blasé. Germany has about 200,000 active and reserve military personnel. Ukraine has 2 million men (and women) under arms, and they’re losing - and that’s with basically all of Europe’s materiel at their disposal. And Germany has the fourth-largest army in Europe (third-largest if you exclude Turkiye). Belgium, Sweden, Portugal, Finland, Norway, Lithuania, Denmark, Slovakia, Latvia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Estonia, Slovenia, Albania, Montenegro, Luxembourg, and Iceland all have fewer than 25,000 military personnel.
The German Army’s readiness goal - to be clear, this is the goal, not what they can actually do - is to be able to sustain a force of 4,000 men in the field indefinitely. Russia invaded Ukraine with around 200,000 and currently has about 470,000 in the country.
All it takes is replacing some of the niche enablers the US currently provides.
With their 8 C-17s, the U.K. is the only nation in Europe with heavy airlift capabilities. For context, the US has ~200 C-17s, plus another 50 C-5s; the Chinese have >60 equivalent air freighters and the Russians have 20 or so. This is not a niche enabler - it’s a foundational aspect of modern warfare. And you can’t just buy a couple and call it good.
I’d argue that it’s actually the other way around. Europe has specialized in niche enablers, not the US. Wars are won with combined arms armies supported by competent logistics, not light infantry and special operations forces.
perhaps a tiny numbers disadvantage in relatively deemphasized categories like Tanks and AFVs.
lol. Germany has fewer than 300 tanks total. Russia was absorbing losses of about 100 tanks a month in Ukraine at the peak. Europe is currently at a massive numbers disadvantage in those categories - and while drones are prompting nations around the world to rethink their tactics, drones can’t win you a war. At best, they can slow how fast you’re losing one.
Israel just demonstrated that technology matters and that it’s still possible to achieve air superiority over hostile territory - but frankly, Europe isn’t Israel, and Iran isn’t Russia. Worse, when the war in Ukraine ends the Russian Armed Forces will be battle-tested and veteran, while most of Europe has no combat experience to speak of in living memory.
I’m not arguing that Russia is all that, but European militaries have constantly underestimated Russia to their detriment, and - respectfully - “we could win right now and if we spend more it’ll be ridiculously lopsided in our favor” is emblematic of that.
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Comment on US bombers strike nuclear sites in Iran in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentThis isn't quite true. Congress signed an Authorized Use of Military Force against, basically, "terrorism" in the wake of 9/11. The AUMF has been interpreted quite broadly, but for some of those...without Congressional approval
This isn't quite true. Congress signed an Authorized Use of Military Force against, basically, "terrorism" in the wake of 9/11. The AUMF has been interpreted quite broadly, but for some of those countries (especially Afghanistan) there was indeed effectively explicit approval.
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Comment on What's the most feasible way to exit modern society? in ~talk
R3qn65 Link ParentThis comment will piss you off, so, sorry in advance - but there's someone I wish I had told something similar, I didn't, and now it's too late. Trying to avoid making that mistake again. These...This comment will piss you off, so, sorry in advance - but there's someone I wish I had told something similar, I didn't, and now it's too late. Trying to avoid making that mistake again.
These are hard times. I completely understand being worried about the state of the world, the state of humanity. I even think it's reasonable to believe and to argue that the world as we know it is over. What concerns me in your post, though, is the assertion that anyone who disagrees that the world is over is burying their head in the sand. The reason I say this is because that's a one-way trip. As soon we start to believe that we're not just correct but the only ones seeing the truth, there's no more room for any compromise - or hope. Because if we think that we're the only ones who understand that the world is over, that truth is dead, that the apocalypse is inevitable... I think that leads you down a very dark road very quickly.
I'm not trying to change your mind. All I ask is that you keep a sliver of possibility alive that others see the exact same facts that you do - that they're not uninformed, just different - and can come to different conclusions. All I ask is that you leave room for a sliver of hope.
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Comment on Ezra Klein interview with US Rep. Sarah McBride in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentThe original title was "Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights." I find all this extremely confusing. When I was talking about fairness, I meant because she discussed a ton of things...'ve already called you out for editorializing the headline, because you felt it was unfair. Given everything I've read from trans folks online, regarding this article no less, I don't think it was unfair at all... for every person I see supporting the views expressed in this article, I see many, many more denouncing it.
The original title was "Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights."
I find all this extremely confusing. When I was talking about fairness, I meant because she discussed a ton of things and to focus on just one bit of it wasn't fair. (Some would call the NYT's original title............editorializing.)
But clearly you're implying that I was trying to shield her from criticism in changing the original title. Which I just don't get, because I don't see how the original title is in any way objectionable. I think it's a dumb title, but the notion that transgender people who don't like McBride would somehow find the original title more fair baffles me.
What would make the most sense to me is if you didn't know what the original title was, don't like Rep. McBride, saw me mention fairness, assumed the original title was something like "McBride: trans traitor?", figured I changed it to protect her, and then lashed out. If that's what happened, cool - now we both know what the original title is and it's all fine.
This is seriously the weirdest conversation I've been a part of on this website. Did you read the article in question? Because even to say "the views expressed [by McBride]" is a confusing choice of words. She talked about like 50 different things. Which views are we talking about?
I don’t think this is fair at all. White supremacists have been lusting over attractive white celebrities since the dawn of the internet. America’s National Public Radio did a whole thing about how a bunch of white supremacists started calling Taylor Swift an “Aryan goddess” back in 2016 because she didn’t publicly endorse Hillary Clinton (or something).
In a world where you you get attention from white supremacists for being attractive, female, and white, I don’t think it’s fair to judge attractive white women for not explicitly denouncing white supremacism every time a bunch of internet assholes start making noise about how hot and white they are.
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More broadly, I don’t agree that this falls into an explicit white supremacist pattern. (Again, she’s attractive and happens to be white. Just because white supremacists like that combination doesn’t make acknowledging it white supremacism). But I don’t think we’re going to agree on that one so I thought I’d touch on the judging them based on the silence thing.