I’m also on Mastodon as https://hachyderm.io/@BoydStephenSmithJr .

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 2nd, 2023

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  • II think it’s entirely possible the world is fucked. Climate crisis won’t come during his 2nd administration, but the 4 years we lose in national and international regulation is going to make it impossible to prevent.

    It’ll be slow, but before 2061, I expect the death of the global Internet, and global shipping, and most air travel. Electrical grids will fracture or fail and the pieces used for smaller (at most regional) grid. Cities won’t be able to maintain the sewer pumps, and Cholera will start killing people again. Gas lines will stop maintaining pressure.

    I don’t plan on sticking around that long. My BP has always been bad, so I figure just indulging my vices will make this no my problem, and I don’t have a partner or descendants.

    If you prefer not embracing despair, I suggest looking into how you and your dearest can survive without infrastructure. Local food production, local power and medicine production. Don’t count on supplies you can’t retrieve within a day of travel, and don’t count on the state to maintain roads. “Solarpunk” might be a good search term. Also, might prepare for unpredictable shifts in the local climate, like preferring indoor growing.

    If anyone has data that says we can avoid climate collapse with no new national or international regulation before 2029, I’d love to hear it. Please.




  • Most people never become auto-didacts. Most auto-didacts still benefit from formal training because above average gross performance can mask subtle mistakes until the mistake becomes root cause for a significant error.

    Under significant pressure (like a well-written dramatic fiction, but almost never IRL), most doctors will be willing to perform a procedure without formal training, but under normal conditions, they know it is not worth the additional risk.



  • Might check out the Haskell layout rules.

    Basically, when you leave out the ‘{’ then Haskell uses your intendation to insert ‘;}’ on later lines between the leading whitespace and the first token.

    There some really old Haskell code out there that lines up the ‘{;}’ characters on the left under block-introduction keywords.




  • The DJIA (e.g.) isn’t “the house”. It isn’t something you are competing with in that your losses are its/their gain. You are misunderstanding both investing (in general and the stock market specifically) and gambling when you make that confusion/analogy.

    Not beating the market but having positive returns is only “losing” when infinite exponential growth is the goal. Beating the market but having negative returns is not “winning”.





  • IMO: When you do it for the entertainment/feeling/rush, it’s gambling. When you do it for the returns, it is investing. I also think the other poster that mentioned investing as being interested in the success of the endeavor, that would exclude shorting and I think might be a useful distinction.

    Casino games and sports betting all have lower expected value (probabilistic value) than their cost, so they are not something you can do for returns (you have better expected returns by not participating).

    There are plenty of people that are misinformed, dishonest, or stuck finding a bigger fool that will sell you a gamble by calling it an investment, and expected value is not guaranteed value.



  • I build my own. Though I still need non-free software to run, I don’t think it is from any DMCA enforcers.

    System76 is not too bad if you want something mildly customizable but don’t want to futz with doing assembly yourself. I get my laptops from them.

    I’ve tried open phones (multiple) and I still use a Pixel. There is a choice, but I was willing to trade off my freedom for function there. I wish that wasn’t the choice and when I can I support efforts to make it easier for people to choose freedom there.

    So, yeah, there is often a choice. Doesn’t make the status quo acceptable.