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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • For rich people, it’s not about using it or making a practical purchase. Its a way to show others how much you care about them (none).

    I was thinking about this topic just a few days ago. I have another theory. Yes, yacht ownership is a method of communication, but they’re not trying to communicate with the common people, but instead indicating to each other of their level of wealth so they can find equal peers or greater peers to associate with, or greater to avoid.

    A rich person with $10M net worth has almost nothing in common with a rich person with a $1B net worth.






  • but I think the realistic reading is it was simply a kickback to fortune 500 companies that got these politicians elected.

    If there were no legitimate geopolitical reasons, then the “simply a kickback” would be much more plausible. Also, if it was a single source company, then “simply a kickback” would look true. Additionally, if was perhaps just domestic companies “simply a kickback” would certainly be even more likely. Lastly, the Chips act wasn’t just about production domestically. It also blocked sales/exports of completed high end chips and chip making equipment to China. If the Chips act was “simple a kickback” you wouldn’t do all that other stuff, and you certainly wouldn’t allow foreign winners (like Taiwan’s TSMC).

    Was their rewards because of industry lobbying? Certainly. However, unless you’re in a purely communist system of government where all the companies are owned by the state, you’re always going to have private companies benefiting from government spending, tax breaks, and subsidies. As to this just applying to fortune 500 companies, there isn’t really a “mom and pop” semiconductor industry making handfuls of chips at a time except outside of engineering sample that are used in R&D for fortune 500 companies.


  • The worst of it hasn’t happened yet. The point where consumers can no longer afford to consume is coming.

    Its mostly already arrived.

    “As of June 30, the top 20% of earners accounted for more than 63% of all spending”

    source

    This means that the other 80% of Americans represent only 37% of the spending done today. If a company is looking to maximize profits the typical path is to do so by marketing to the group where they could earn the most money. That is less and less the bottom 80% of Americans.


  • The creator in that video seems to think the Chips Act subsidies were to benefit consumers by having affordable memory produced domestically. That wasn’t the goal. The goal was to derive drive GDP by having another source of domestic production, and drive job growth/tax revenue from workers working at the domestic facility. Lastly, it was to have strategic domestic production decoupled from other nations so we, as a nation, could not be held hostage by another nation (like we do to so many other nations) for crucial (pun very much intended) resources we need.

    Nothing about that is about making RAM cheaper for retail consumers.


  • The promise of “fiber to the home” is still mostly unrealized, but those trunk lines are out there with oodles of “dark fiber” ready to carry data… someday.

    Counterintuitively, I’m seeing “fiber to the home” deployed more in rural an exurb areas. My guess this is because its lower density meaning installing and maintaining copper repeaters becomes more expensive than laying long distance, low maintenance, fiber. Additionally its easier to obtain permits because there is far less existing infrastructure to interfere with right of way and critical services.

    We got fiber to the home in our exurb about 4 years ago here in the USA. Its really cheap too. 500Mb/s is $75, 1Gb/s $100, and 5Gb/s I think is $200 per month.



  • I’ve been in the Raspberry Pi world for awhile and had a taste of both the more limited selection of ARM based binaries, but also exposed to a bit of cross compiling. I’m sure I’ll run into things that are x86 specific, but that will also give me a chance to be exposed to the benefits and limits of x86 emulation on Apple Silicon.

    This brings me to cloud compute. For x86 binaries with no chance of substitution/cross compiling, I am planning on spinning up an x86 cloud instance that will likely accommodate a few more of my needs. I’m fully aware that there will be some applications that will simply have no accommodation, mitigation, or substitution on ARM and I’ll have to “go without”. I do have x86 a Linux desktop in regular use.

    Lastly, I also take advantage of ARM based cloud compute, as it is SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper than x86 cloud compute. Having a native workstation architecture matching the cloud compute architecture, I think, can possibly make live easier instead of harder.

    Worst comes to worst, I can press an old x86 laptop back into service running Linux.


  • While I run Linux on a desktop, I’ve always owned a Windows laptop. I decided last week that instead of ever running Windows 11, I’m going to buy a Macbook and dual boot it with Linux. Yes I know I can run Linux on any number of PC hardware laptops, there are occasionally windows only utilities needed to run firmware or some other proprieatry application. If I can know I can always fall back to OSX for system updates and running proprietary commercial software, I’ll know I never need to touch Windows 11.

    May when Microsoft realizes Windows 11 is Vista 2.0, Windows 12 may be great. With Linux and OSX, I don’t see myself coming back to Windows even then though.



  • the story is illustrating “book smart” from “street smart”.

    who’s who? I thought Light and L were fairly similar in their types of intelligence and both felt book smart.

    Light = Book Smart
    Light’s Father = Street Smart

    Death Note is a variation on the Hero’s Journey trope

    how? It just seemed like a typical “antagonist and protagonist are mirrors” with a villain protagonist in Light.

    Hero’s Journey is so common, I too, would consider it “typical”.

    Combine L, Near, and Mello all as one entity “the hero”. How that composite travels through the story I see it well mapping against the hero’s journey. Another portion of the variation is that the story primarily follows Light/Kira, which is the antagonist, not the hero.


  • sure thing. It’s just combining that with the “I smelt the onion in his farts, that breed of onion only grows in the nagasaki region” style writing of “smart, observant people” makes the show kinda silly , while the tone is suuuuper serious about everything.

    I don’t think that’s out-of-place either for the story. Much like the difference between Light and his father, the story is illustrating “book smart” from “street smart”.

    Like so much other modern fiction, Death Note is a variation on the Hero’s Journey trope. In this case, the hero is a composite between L, Near, and Mello.


  • You’re making conclusions based on “good/bad” or “evil/just”. This means there are moral or philosophical definitions.

    Light Yagami lies and manipulates people to get away with killing people. Clark Kent lies and possibly manipulates people to save or protect people.

    • Kant, I think, might say you’re wrong because as long as each of these people is doing what is true to themselves in their own moral code, they are equally “good”.

    • Bentham, I think, would say you’re wrong these are not the same because the outcome from Light’s actions is mass murder, while the outcome of Clark’s actions is safety, peace, and protection.


  • he uses the deathnote in an infantile manner and his sense of justice is juvenile.

    Light was a teenager. He’s always lived an easy sheltered life under the care of his parents. He’s lacking any real life experience. In my mind, his juvenile sense of justice is right in line with someone of that immaturity especially given the power he got from the Death Note. We get to see a great contrast when Light’s father is given the power of the Death Note, and immediately chooses to cut his own life in half to get the eyes. The father understands self sacrifice and paying the price to protect those he loves.