gary's recent activity
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Comment on How Donald Trump won, and how Kamala Harris lost in ~society
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Comment on Donald Trump didn't win on the US economy. He won on the perception of it. in ~society
gary It's nuanced. The Democrats pushed on abortion hard this election cycle, and while the majority of Americans do support abortion, the majority do not support it in the second or third trimester....It's nuanced. The Democrats pushed on abortion hard this election cycle, and while the majority of Americans do support abortion, the majority do not support it in the second or third trimester. The support for abortion drops off a cliff after the first trimester. The topic of abortion should have been a slam dunk for the Democrats, but instead, the Republicans were able to 1) question whether people actually supported the Democrats with their handwaving of abortions after the first trimester, and 2) focus on topics that touch people's lives more often than abortion does (price of food).
Democrats did not want to commit to any messaging on third or even second trimester abortions because they didn't want to anger progressives, but now that they lost the election, we've just set back the pro-choice movement by at least half a decade, probably more.
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Comment on How Donald Trump won, and how Kamala Harris lost in ~society
gary Your quoted paragraph says this survey is done monthly and that the government is not reliant on looking at people on unemployment benefits to determine the unemployment rate.If you no longer receive unemployment and living off savings, etc., you won't be counted as unemployed unless a census is due
Your quoted paragraph says this survey is done monthly and that the government is not reliant on looking at people on unemployment benefits to determine the unemployment rate.
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Comment on How Donald Trump won, and how Kamala Harris lost in ~society
gary Yeah bringing attention to the topic would have been a losing situation for Harris. Better to change the narrative to something that's not already associated negatively with Dems.Yeah bringing attention to the topic would have been a losing situation for Harris. Better to change the narrative to something that's not already associated negatively with Dems.
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Comment on How Donald Trump won, and how Kamala Harris lost in ~society
gary I don't think we know enough about where the ads were played and if it was just limited to swing states though, at least I didn't see it in this article when I skimmed that section.I don't think we know enough about where the ads were played and if it was just limited to swing states though, at least I didn't see it in this article when I skimmed that section.
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Comment on How Donald Trump won, and how Kamala Harris lost in ~society
gary That would have worked on people that are already voting D, but not the people voting R.. I don't think non-college educated white males would have been persuaded by more arguments over genitalia....That would have worked on people that are already voting D, but not the people voting R.. I don't think non-college educated white males would have been persuaded by more arguments over genitalia. They want jobs and affordable homes.
Edit: I grew up working class and no one's top priority was "culture war" stuff. Parents, aunts, and uncles are still working class and they only talk about the economy.
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Comment on Omnivore alternatives? in ~tech
gary This is from an iOS user's perspective. For the last few days I've been using a mix of GoodLinks, Shortcuts, and markdown files to replace Omnivore. I use GoodLinks to save and read articles...This is from an iOS user's perspective. For the last few days I've been using a mix of GoodLinks, Shortcuts, and markdown files to replace Omnivore.
I use GoodLinks to save and read articles later. The UI is decent and leagues ahead of trying to shoehorn Obsidian into a reader. Apps that are editor focused first tend to be poor readers and vice versa. GoodLinks has two drawbacks though. The first is that it cannot save content that you see on the page, the way that Omnivore did, so paywalls can be an issue. I rely on archive.is here.
The second is that it only syncs links, not content. If you save the webpage on one device, then it changes, your next device that installs GoodLinks will not have the original content. Dead links can break you here and data is not permanent. The dev has stated before that they're looking into syncing content, but I do not rely on promises here. For backup, I use GoodLinks's excellent iOS Shortcuts integration to export data of links I've starred or read. The markdown (and plaintext version) files go into iCloud Drive and I am considering putting them into a git repo.
The other benefit of exporting data is that I can delete older articles in the future when I've saved too many links. Since GoodLinks downloads links anew on new devices, having 5000 saved links could mean all 5000 get re-downloaded on install, but I suspect that read links do not automatically download (have not tested).
I've watched enough apps die that data export is my only criteria, in case I need to search the raw data in the future, so I am grateful to the GoodLinks dev for building in Shortcuts integrations. Still, the solution feels a bit messy and I'm looking forward to the next generation of apps in this area.
Edit: I will share the Shortcut if anyone is interested; it's a very straightforward one.
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Comment on 2024 United States election megathread in ~society
gary I think you'd be surprised at how racist minority groups are. Remember the Venezuelan migrant crisis? In my city, the most anti-migrant voices were from Latinos, Asians, and blacks. Minority...I think you'd be surprised at how racist minority groups are. Remember the Venezuelan migrant crisis? In my city, the most anti-migrant voices were from Latinos, Asians, and blacks. Minority groups usually look out for their own but otherwise don't view themselves as in a coalition. And by "own", I mean by their country or even more granular. Chinese people could not care less about Laotian people, for example.
Not saying it's right, just how it is.
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Comment on 2024 United States election megathread in ~society
gary I don't know this for sure, but in my opinion, it is this attitude of attributing conservatives' feelings to "lizard brain" and not genuine experiences or thought processes that galvanizes them to...I don't know this for sure, but in my opinion, it is this attitude of attributing conservatives' feelings to "lizard brain" and not genuine experiences or thought processes that galvanizes them to vote in such strong numbers.
In my very blue city, in a blue enough neighborhood, people recently have adopted gun ownership at crazy high rates! Democrats kept telling them how violent crime is not actually an issue, but everyone now knows someone who was mugged or carjacked or shot. So a group that was generally gun avoidant is now pro-2A, and it's disgusting to watch that change in realtime.
I'm pissed about what happened tonight. I hope we spend the upcoming months and years reflecting about what we think we know about the Other Side, which we'll never do if we assume they're just voting out of a knee jerk reaction.
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Comment on 2024 United States election megathread in ~society
gary That's used as an insult. The insult being that the person is a lesser one that is driven by a base animal instinct in contrast to the intellectual that is able to resist.That's used as an insult. The insult being that the person is a lesser one that is driven by a base animal instinct in contrast to the intellectual that is able to resist.
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Comment on Google asked to remove ten billion “pirate” search results in ~tech
gary You and I think about this very similarly then. I particularly like "I give what I'm willing to pay". I think that about sums up my decision making when I choose to pirate or pay.You and I think about this very similarly then. I particularly like "I give what I'm willing to pay". I think that about sums up my decision making when I choose to pirate or pay.
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Comment on Google asked to remove ten billion “pirate” search results in ~tech
gary It's hard to believe it's greed causing piracy if you proudly declare that you will always pirate regardless. If you said it was a service problem, or a price problem, or some combination of the...It's hard to believe it's greed causing piracy if you proudly declare that you will always pirate regardless. If you said it was a service problem, or a price problem, or some combination of the two, and that you wouldn't pirate if those were solved, then it would sound like it's an industry greed issue.
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Comment on Weekly Middle East war megathread - week of October 28 in ~news
gary Technically it's 9+. Perhaps it's in the dozens in actuality, but there are only 9+ visually confirmed by WaPo as of this moment.Technically it's 9+. Perhaps it's in the dozens in actuality, but there are only 9+ visually confirmed by WaPo as of this moment.
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Comment on Apex Legends dev team update: Linux and anti-cheat in ~games
gary I don't ever remember CS:GO having a good reputation for VAC, but maybe it's better than CS2 (I've never played CS2). There were certainly cheaters and VAC waves and then logging on to confirm my...I don't ever remember CS:GO having a good reputation for VAC, but maybe it's better than CS2 (I've never played CS2). There were certainly cheaters and VAC waves and then logging on to confirm my suspicions that someone in my games had been banned, I remember that. But the ban waves came every once in a while, so between them, there were plenty of cheaters. And plenty of cheaters soon after a ban wave.
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Comment on Steam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages in ~games
gary How small of a minority depends on game. I don't play Counter-Strike anymore, but friends do, and I hear about cheaters a lot. One higher elo player estimated that at least 21% of players were...How small of a minority depends on game. I don't play Counter-Strike anymore, but friends do, and I hear about cheaters a lot. One higher elo player estimated that at least 21% of players were cheaters, in a sample of 60 games. With the game being a 5v5, that means many games would include a cheater. CS is a game that is so rife with cheaters that two companies built a business model off of "we can offer you an environment to play CS in that is much stricter at catching cheaters".
As someone opposed to giving kernel access to anti-cheat, I have been contemplating building a strictly-gaming PC or switching to console gaming if I ever want to play multiplayer competitive games again.
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Comment on Weekly Middle East war megathread - week of October 28 in ~news
gary "Person carries 3% of yearly salary out the door with them each morning" sounds kind of fun though."Person carries 3% of yearly salary out the door with them each morning" sounds kind of fun though.
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Comment on What’s behind the sudden surge in young Americans’ wealth? in ~finance
gary But they do use the median here. And for overall net worth, not just home equity. So it is literally that at least half of millennials are worth more, adjusted for inflation, at this point in...But they do use the median here. And for overall net worth, not just home equity. So it is literally that at least half of millennials are worth more, adjusted for inflation, at this point in their lives over the two generations preceding them. "Hardly the norm" is false.
But the article also mentions that the gap in wealth between those that own homes and those that do not has grown 70% in the last 33 years and that is incredibly concerning.
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Comment on E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders in ~food
gary Disappointing that Snopes felt the need to link a bunch of "sources" that all report back the same thing, when they already had a source that was the primary source for all the rewrites from...Disappointing that Snopes felt the need to link a bunch of "sources" that all report back the same thing, when they already had a source that was the primary source for all the rewrites from Gizmodo/CBC/NYTimes.
The original source of that story is from the owner, Alfred Taubman, who hired a market research firm. He details this in his book Threshold Resistance, and Snopes does link to that, but then Snopes links to 4 other websites that are just rehashes of the original 2 paragraphs.
In the age of the Internet, journalists need to be careful not to assume that a source is worthy because it was rewritten multiple times. Sites like rewriting existing articles because they don't have to pay for research, but it can become a game of telephone.
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Comment on Apple’s AirPods Pro hearing health features are as good as they sound in ~health
gary If you're in the US, they're frequently on sale in the $180-$200 range. I usually just set up an alert (something like "AirPods Pro 2" to weed out the other models) on SlickDeals and patiently...If you're in the US, they're frequently on sale in the $180-$200 range. I usually just set up an alert (something like "AirPods Pro 2" to weed out the other models) on SlickDeals and patiently wait for it to hit that range.
If you do decide to get AirPods, please be careful that Amazon has a track record of sending out counterfeits. I got burned 1 out of 3 times. I would wait for a sale from Best Buy or price match to Best Buy since they seem a little better there.
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Comment on Meta fires staff for abusing $25 meal credits in ~tech
gary (edited )Link ParentI work at a FAANG-like as an SWE. Take your assumptions elsewhere. I know this field intimately and I despise the Bay Area woe-is-me mentality. Should I ask for pity because my monthly income...Just about everything you've said leads me to believe you know little to nothing about what the job market in the bay area, especially around these salaries, is like, and how very hard it can be to take those skills anywhere else.
I work at a FAANG-like as an SWE. Take your assumptions elsewhere. I know this field intimately and I despise the Bay Area woe-is-me mentality.
Should I ask for pity because my monthly income looks lower when I'm paying off my mortgage and doing a mega backdoor Roth? No, so why should people making 5x the US average household income deserve any pity because they're sticking their money into their mortgage?
EDIT: "intimately" might have been overselling it. I know it as well as anyone who works at FAANG and keeps an occasional eye on levels.fyi or HN or r/cscareerquestions.
That is a misunderstanding of how sample sizes work with confidence intervals. I wish I could mathematically disprove it to you, but my statistics class was a long time ago and I didn't pay the most attention. But you only need to survey a very small subset of the population assuming that your sample is good. There are calculators for this if you don't believe me.