ricree · HackerLangs

hace 15 díasdiscuss

The main issue is that they are very careful not to frame it like that. In broader contexts, it's always framed as something like "do you favor limiting children's access to social media" without a word on what it would cost to actually institute such a ban.

ricree

hace 17 díasdiscuss

> Rather, hopefully, Iran will be to the US what Turks were to Byzantium.

An invading force that settles within it and ultimately destroys it before launching expansionist invasions to all of its neighbors?

ricree

hace 26 díasdiscuss

Arguably, Rome itself is such an example. Over the course of its long history it was repeatedly pushed to the brink of ruin only to slowly build back up without ever quite reaching its old heights.

The crisis of the third century could easily have been the doom of Rome, with its crumbling splinter states infighting until they broke apart completely. Instead, the succession of Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine were able to build it back into a single unified state, if not so prosperous or dominant as the previous version had been.

The same chaos that took the west might well have claimed the east as well under different circumstances, but over time they were able to restabilize, recover, and start to grow again. If not for the Justinian Plague, the reconquest of Italy might have been an actual success instead of the phyrric one it turned into. If nothing else, they at least managed to hold onto fully half the empire until centuries later when the Arabic conquests began.

And speaking of those early conquests, there was absolutely no guarantee that those wars were something they would survive. The Empire was still recovering from a brutal, generations long war against Persia, which itself did not survive as an independent state. The sieges of Constantinople were harsh and brutal, and could have gone differently, but they held on and slowly regained control of what they could, until the Macedonian dynasty was at least the foremost power in the region once again.

But then they screwed it up, spent some years in decline from a succession of bad rulers culminating in a few key defeats to the Turkish invaders caused in large part by infighting from wealthy elites. After this, they spent most of a generation with various elites selling off bits of the remaining empire to secure a throne whose value continued dropping with each betrayal. This too could easily have been the end, but eventually things stabilized. One of these grasping leaders actually managed to hold onto power and slowly rebuild. Then one lucky crusade later, they actually have much of their pre-Turkish territory back.

Except oops, a grasping member of the imperial family seizes control and drives it into the ground. After that we get a succession of weak emperors unable to deal with the harsh realities of their situation, followed by a series of coups that results in one of the displaced heirs inviting the fourth crusade into empire, which eventually results in the capital being sacked and the empire shattering into tiny city states.

That really ought to have been the end. Except that one of these states managed to regain control, rebuild to a fraction of their old strength, and at least hold most of Greece and Western Anatolia. It was a tiny, tiny fraction of the pre-crusade empire, much less Rome at its height, but they were still able to carve another century or two of stability when all hope had seemed lost.

ricree

el mes pasadodiscuss

>It's harder to play baseball or football without all assortment of costly bats, helmets, gloves, et cetera

In practice, casual football isn't any more resource heavy than soccer. Most non-league games of football are going to be "touch football", which only requires a ball, a field, and some sort of end marker (as a kid, it was usually just "from that tree to that other tree").

Obviously, organized league play has a ton more equipment, but the sort of informal casual games that kids or young adults play requires much less. It's one of those things that doesn't really get talked about a ton compared to league play, so it's easy to miss for those who didn't grow up with it.

ricree

hace 2 mesesdiscuss

Can they?

In most places with any sort of economic opportunity, I have a very hard time believing that part time earnings would get you housing on par with a full time earner in 1976.

ricree

hace 4 mesesdiscuss

>For example, the vast majority of people choose to retire once they reach the age where they are able to collect enough from their pension that they no longer need to work in order to get by

Part of the problem is that the current system doesn't provide a great way to taper off, at least not by default. I suspect there would be a lot more people who'd keep working if it was simple to get a comparable job at 30 hours per week 25 weeks out of the year. But for those who are traditionally employed instead of contracting, the choice is often between full time or nothing.

ricree

hace 4 mesesdiscuss

>but most states do not have a per se ID

Out of curiosity, do you have a source or list for this? My own home state and those around me that I've spot checked all have a state ID available as an alternative to a driver's license. My understanding was that this is the case for most states.

Unless I've misunderstood you and you meant a state ID that is completely separate from a driver's license to the point that people with a DL would have one?

ricree

hace 5 mesesdiscuss

Pertinent quote:

>It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that

ricree

hace 5 mesesdiscuss

>Many kids who placed highly in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search ended up winning Nobel Prizes later in life

Do you happen to have a list available? I saw a few among the winners, but I wasn't able to find much about non-winning top placers.

The ones I could find won their Nobel much later than their Talent Search win (40+ years, and in one case more than 60 years after), so it might be premature to rule out the more modern contestants. (at least based on that alone)

ricree

hace 5 mesesdiscuss

I remember reading about this when it first happened. Glad there was at least a somewhat positive outcome.

For reference, here is the HN thread shortly after the arrest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21000273

ricree

hace 6 mesesdiscuss

> how much sugar water people buy, cases and cases

One confounding factor here is that oftentimes the price is only reasonable in bulk. I don't know about walmart, but around me the best deal typically is "buy 2 get 3 free". I rarely buy/drink soda, but on the occasions I buy at all I'll be getting many cases at a time.

ricree

hace 9 mesesdiscuss

Yes. As far as I'm aware the person I responded to was mistaken about that. My own point was that commercial farming in the rest of NA (and possibly even parts of Mexico, I genuinely don't know) was introduced via Europe rather than straight from Mexico. At least as far as I'm aware.

ricree

hace 9 mesesdiscuss

>So it's native to the new world, but not native to North America?

My understanding is that the wild turkey was common throughout North America, but was domesticated in Mexico, and modern turkey farming uses stock descending from that population.

So the bird itself is native, but most Turkey farms in the US or Canada would have been Mexico->Europe->NA.

ricree

hace 10 mesesdiscuss

Just about a year and a half too late for https://longbets.org/712/

Although from the article, it sounds like this might not be servicing a wide enough area to win the bet even if the time was extended a couple years.

ricree

el año pasadodiscuss

In addition to that, if the Why ever changes (maybe the issue was in an external dependency that finally got patched), you'd have to update the name or else leave it incorrect. Mildly annoying if just in one codebase, but a needlessly breaking change if that function is exported.

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