heraplem's recent activity

  1. Comment on Is COBOL holding you hostage with math? in ~comp

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I'm pretty sure that Haskell and Scala qualify.

    most modern day programming languages do not have support for fixed point or decimal built in either. (Actually I think the correct statement is NONE of them do, but I couldn’t confidently verify that)

    I'm pretty sure that Haskell and Scala qualify.

    4 votes

  2. Comment on Virginia lawmaker says he called Social Security Administration and it hung up on him: 'It's very concerning' in ~society

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Accelerationism is rational if some amount of pain is already locked in and front-loading some of that pain might help prevent further pain.

    Accelerationism is rational if some amount of pain is already locked in and front-loading some of that pain might help prevent further pain.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on US Postal Service chief Louis DeJoy steps down in ~society

    heraplem
    Link
    Can someone explain to me if there's any legitimate reason for the phrase "Democrats said" to be there? In fact, "violate federal law" seems too weak. The Postal Service is established in the...

    Republican President Donald Trump, who in February called the agency a "tremendous loser for this country," said he was considering merging the Postal Service with the Commerce Department, a move Democrats said would violate federal law.

    Can someone explain to me if there's any legitimate reason for the phrase "Democrats said" to be there?

    In fact, "violate federal law" seems too weak. The Postal Service is established in the Constitution. It would be unconstitutional to get rid of it.

    And even if the (IMO, irresponsible and scary in its implications) position of Reuters is to be neutral here, "Democrats" is the wrong word, right? It should be something more general, like "critics".

    30 votes

  4. Comment on Block AI scrapers with Anubis in ~comp

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    This has been discussed before in the context of cryptocurrencies. The theoretical problem is that, if the work isn't inherently worthless, then someone could stand to benefit from it, and so it...

    Like if rather than giving them a meaningless challenge they were fed something to execute from one of those distributed compute research projects. I assume it wouldn't work, but sounds fun.

    This has been discussed before in the context of cryptocurrencies. The theoretical problem is that, if the work isn't inherently worthless, then someone could stand to benefit from it, and so it would have less value as a deterrent.

    7 votes

  5. Comment on If a new constitution was written, what would you advocate for in it? in ~society

    heraplem
    Link
    This is somewhat specific to frustrations with the US government, but I would definitely advocate for a parliamentary system. Separate the head of state and the head of government and make the...

    This is somewhat specific to frustrations with the US government, but I would definitely advocate for a parliamentary system. Separate the head of state and the head of government and make the head of government the "chief legislator" as in most countries. The idea of controlling ambition by distributing power between branches of government has, frankly, been an abject failure, especially in the age of the Internet.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Dollar General warns low-income Americans' finances are getting worse in ~finance

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    This is why I just put everything in an all-world market cap-weighted ETF. Doing anything else is rational only if you think you know better than the market.

    This is why I just put everything in an all-world market cap-weighted ETF. Doing anything else is rational only if you think you know better than the market.

    6 votes

  7. Comment on Dollar General warns low-income Americans' finances are getting worse in ~finance

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I will say that there's a serious possibility that we are entering into a period in which American companies are no longer the solid investments that they once were. If you have any tax-advantaged...

    even if we hit a recession, this will be a blip in the grand scale of the investment.

    I will say that there's a serious possibility that we are entering into a period in which American companies are no longer the solid investments that they once were. If you have any tax-advantaged accounts that are heavily biased towards the US market, now might be a good time to change that.

    6 votes

  8. Comment on If a new constitution was written, what would you advocate for in it? in ~society

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I like this idea, but it does run into the problem of "Who controls the body that calculates inflation?"

    Any constant values in laws like minimum wage should be fixed to related variables like inflation.

    I like this idea, but it does run into the problem of "Who controls the body that calculates inflation?"

    3 votes

  9. Comment on US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to vote yes on GOP spending bill in ~society

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I fully believe it. But I find it impossible to understand how he (or, if it's not him, any Democratic Congressperson) could possibly feel that way. Again, he lived through Jan 6. While a mob of...

    I fully believe it. But I find it impossible to understand how he (or, if it's not him, any Democratic Congressperson) could possibly feel that way. Again, he lived through Jan 6. While a mob of the President's most fervent supporters, who very well might have killed Schumer if things had gone a little differently, roamed the Capitol, Trump was calling up Republican legislators and telling them to delay the certification. And this was just one part of a broader conspiracy to steal the 2020 election. It's one thing to think that things will probably turn out all right, but to say that you don't see how Trump is even a threat to democracy? He already tried to destroy it in broad daylight! What more evidence could you possibly need?!

    21 votes

  10. Comment on US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to vote yes on GOP spending bill in ~society

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I don't buy the "controlled opposition" narrative. That's actually the comforting thing to believe, because the alternative is that they're the best we have.

    I don't buy the "controlled opposition" narrative. That's actually the comforting thing to believe, because the alternative is that they're the best we have.

    19 votes

  11. Comment on US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to vote yes on GOP spending bill in ~society

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    For me, this is the key point. Voting to advance the CR might be the right call given the situation the Dems find themselves in. But they don't have to be in this exact situation. This is...

    There was a recognition up in the Senate yesterday that letting the bill pass was a bad idea, but that was matched by a pained realization that the caucus wasn’t ready for the fight. They hadn’t laid any of the groundwork. They didn’t have a clear answer of what they’d be fighting for if a shutdown happened. They’d put their bets on Mike Johnson not being able to get a bill through the House without Democratic votes. When he did, they were caught flatfooted. But the “they” here is Chuck Schumer. That’s the leader’s job. He lead them into a corner.

    For me, this is the key point.

    Voting to advance the CR might be the right call given the situation the Dems find themselves in. But they don't have to be in this exact situation. This is literally the only time they will have any actual leverage until at least the midterms, and yet they somehow didn't come in with a plan. No messaging, no demands telegraphed ahead of time. JFC, how can they be this bad at politics? How? How???

    I seriously think that this is the moment that will cause the base to truly and irrevocably break with the Democratic establishment as it currently exists. Losing the election could be blamed on bad circumstances and Biden's hubris, but the recent string of optics wet farts, culminating in a failure to even attempt to accomplish anything the one time they had an opportunity to do so, is disgusting considering the stakes we're dealing with.

    Whenever I see Schumer talk, I never get the sense that he's in any way bothered by what's going on. The man lived through Jan 6, for Christ's sake! Where's his sense of urgency? Is he really just a creature of the machine with no actual ideological commitments? Even then, he should still be alarmed, because the machine is bleeding to death.

    24 hours earlier, Schumer went to floor and announced that Republicans didn’t have the votes for cloture. On first glance it appeared his caucus had decided to defy the President and his congressional party. But it was a ploy. He was playing his voters for fools. It soon emerged that Schumer’s plan was to engineer what amounted to a performative stand-down, a choreographed interlude of opposition followed by the passage of the GOP bill. It would go like this: Democrats refused to allow a vote on the GOP bill. They then force a compromise: Dems vote for cloture in exchange for allowing Dems to offer amendments to the House bill. But that was a farce: giving up the Democrats’ one true point of leverage in exchange for votes that were literally certain to fail.

    The fact that Schumer even tried this is a damning indictment of his political sensibilities. This isn't the 2000s anymore. Engaged voters---you know, the ones you need going to bat for you on social media---are paying attention to the minutiae of the political process. And if legislators in your own party don't like what you're doing, they can just go tell their constituents directly what's going on. And then people are even more pissed off, because you're doing the thing that people don't want you to do, and you essentially lied to them, and getting caught in the lie makes the whole party look foolish and incompetent. Oh, also, you burned your colleagues in the House. Trying to hoodwink your own base with a procedural shell game is scummy, and doing it this badly is pathetic.

    And it's such a Democratic establishment gesture, too. It's on par with Pelosi tearing up Trump's State of the Union speech in 2020. That era of politics is over, but the Democratic establishment is apparently incapable of absorbing that fact. I make no predictions about what will happen to Schumer personally, but I'm now convinced that 2026 will be a bloodbath for Democratic incumbents.

    33 votes

  12. Comment on How American comedy became a dystopian imperial hell world in ~society

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I admit to not having much of a horse in the comedy race. My experience with standup comedy is shallow enough that my opinions can be boiled down to "George Carlin good, Dane Cook bad". I'm pretty...

    I admit to not having much of a horse in the comedy race. My experience with standup comedy is shallow enough that my opinions can be boiled down to "George Carlin good, Dane Cook bad".

    dry narration

    I'm pretty sure the voice is AI-generated. This creator actually uses AI voices to do a lot of creative and interesting things (and I say this as an overall AI pessimist). See Dominant Masculinity for a superb example.

    Sorry for shitting on this video, @heraplem. Nothing personal against you, or anyone that does enjoy this video. Unfortunately, it was just really not my cup of tea.

    None taken! This one is a bit out there, for sure.

    This was the first video of this channel that I stumbled across, and having watched several videos from it now, it's giving me a a lot of old Web vibes. It's all about remixing and synthesizing to communicate ideas through association, along with a large dose of absurdist humor. And the creator (who IMO is extremely talented) is something of an enigma—I don't think they've ever once used their own voice in a video, and they don't have any social media presence that I'm aware of. It's very much like the sort of thing you might have randomly come across late at night in the 2008–2014 era.

    And frankly, I'm just happy that someone on the left is doing something new and interesting and compelling in an outsider-ey way. The left has gotten too "insider" for my tastes in the last decade and a half.

    3 votes

  14. Comment on US Immigration agents arrest Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests in ~society

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    It's times like these I really wish I could post the "Worst Person You Know" image.

    It's times like these I really wish I could post the "Worst Person You Know" image.

    5 votes

  15. Comment on Discord in early talks about IPO in ~tech

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I was trying to get friends to use XMPP back in 2009. It turns out that people will give up a lot for some convenience and polish. Honestly, it's depressing just how right the doomsayers have...

    I was trying to get friends to use XMPP back in 2009. It turns out that people will give up a lot for some convenience and polish.

    Honestly, it's depressing just how right the doomsayers have turned out to be. What Elon Musk has done to Twitter in particular is beyond what I thought was possible in the near future.

  16. Comment on Repeatedly upvoting violent content on Reddit can now get you flagged in ~tech

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Perhaps because certain people are unhappy with them, and they're trying to signal to those people that they're taking action?

    Perhaps because certain people are unhappy with them, and they're trying to signal to those people that they're taking action?

    2 votes

  17. Comment on Discord in early talks about IPO in ~tech

    heraplem
    Link
    Oh boy, I can't wait for the enshittification of yet another service that we gave control of our social lives due to convenience and complacency!

    Oh boy, I can't wait for the enshittification of yet another service that we gave control of our social lives due to convenience and complacency!

    19 votes

  18. Comment on California Governor Gavin Newsom "completely aligns" with Charlie Kirk on trans athlete issue, and agreed about restricting gender affirming care for prisoners and youths, in podcast in ~lgbt

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Seriously. Even if you feel like you have to give ground on an issue, don't ever agree that they've been acting in good faith.

    Seriously. Even if you feel like you have to give ground on an issue, don't ever agree that they've been acting in good faith.

    7 votes

  19. Comment on US President Donald Trump cuts short talks with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Oval Office blow up in ~society

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I haven't seen anyone talk about this, but I'm pretty certain that Youtube implemented a system to push positive comments to the top a little while back. You're likely to see homogeneity in...

    I haven't seen anyone talk about this, but I'm pretty certain that Youtube implemented a system to push positive comments to the top a little while back. You're likely to see homogeneity in top-level comments no matter what video you're looking at, at least in terms of overall positive sentiment.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Volodymyr Zelenskyy offers to step down if Ukraine can join NATO in ~society

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    If it's that bad, then the Republic probably is cooked.

    That all said, I can't imagine that a broad audience has any context for how executive orders work, what's done by Congress vs the executive branch, what the state of both are..

    If it's that bad, then the Republic probably is cooked.