IkmoIkmo (u/IkmoIkmo)

IkmoIkmo commented on Young adults in the U.S. are reaching key life milestones later than in the past pewresearch.org/short-rea... · Posted by u/paulpauper

IkmoIkmo · 2 years ago

In part I think it’s because young people’s worlds have massively expanded, on average. I traveled to 5 continents mostly without parents as a teenager, and I’m a pretty average guy who just put his mind to it. It’d be unthinkable for my parents to have done the same.

In part I think we also have more time, life expectancy grew by about 7 years in the past 50 years. And our ability to have kids at a later age is growing with medical advances. Going to school for longer and getting kids later, makes sense in that context.

Anyway I think it’s a bit misleading to take particular ages and then compare percentages (e.g. 21yos with a kid in 1980 vs 2021) This way of presenting data can exaggerate the differences, average age of first kid would be better for example. I don’t know how to call this statistics phenomenon, but imagine the light blue area to be ‘kids in the house at 21yo’ and then imagine a minor shift in the average age of having the first kid, the resulting figure would seem much more pronounced than the minor shift in average age. Would’ve been nice to see the data presented differently.

IkmoIkmo commented on The Sudan crisis and the Sahel gold rush adamtooze.substack.com/p/... · Posted by u/hackandthink

bjackman · 2 years ago

I've enjoyed the growth of expert blogs like this one in the last few years!

I've generally felt that traditional news falls into several traps of writing style that turn me off completely:

- an insufferable mixture of informational coverage with character profiles (e.g. I come to read about the Sahel gold rush but I am confronted with paragraphs of vibe-setting introduction as the author interviews a person of interest).

- coverage that assumes the same level of contextual knowledge for complex and distant conflicts as for recent national news.

- dull "long reads" that I just don't feel like spending a hour on.

On the other hand this piece is just informative, concise, and engaging :)

IkmoIkmo · 2 years ago

Oh god that first one… It’s really nice in podcast form on the way to work or in the bathtub, absolutely terrible to keep my attention when trying to understand news in readable form, and always suspect of being mere anecdata and generally wrong. Especially when it concerns a country or industry or phenomenon I have no experience in.

IkmoIkmo commented on On my resignation as regulator of the Dutch intelligence and security services berthub.eu/articles/posts... · Posted by u/pabs3

timwaagh · 3 years ago

Although I do share the concerns it's impossible to know what this would do in practice. For the most part I think our Government (ie the Dutch one) is run by people with integrity. I doubt they'd want to cause scandal by overloading regulators to do nasty stuff. Although I must say I don't agree with this change either.

IkmoIkmo · 3 years ago

Not sure about that. If you’re competing with an adversary in the cybersecurity space, it’s likely that you’ll go quite far to win. It’s a matter of national security after all, plus it is strictly legal soon to start your activities and slow down the ex-post checks and balances, do you really expect these hackers to self-regulate based on some kind of personal value system, and resist any challenge to these values from colleagues, managers or indeed your adversaries?

Unlikely, plus there have been plenty of reasons to think otherwise. Just look at how the ministries are treating WOB/FOIA requests, frustrating the process, breaking every regulatory deadline and very willing to pay the silly fines for always being way late with taxpayer money. It’s a joke.

Besides, we have the toeslagenschandaal showing how civil servants are completely willing to screw over tens of thousands of civilians, driving people to divorces, bankruptcies, suicides, kids to foster homes etc. We NEED checks and balances, desperately so, also in the Netherlands. God knows what happens when we don’t. NL is relatively good, but it’s all relative, at the end of the day it’s a bunch of humans that will fuck up without good governance.

IkmoIkmo commented on After weight-loss surgery, a year of joys and disappointments (2016) nytimes.com/2016/12/27/he... · Posted by u/paulpauper

oneepic · 3 years ago

I didn't have surgery to lose weight, but I lost >110 lb via diet/some exercise and I feel similar to the people in TFA -- things haven't changed as much as I expected. For me, a big reason is that my overall body shape is the same.

I'm overweight, not obese, going by BMI (though pretty close to the borderline). but I still look fat in all the old places I used to look fat. I've gone down a couple clothing sizes, but it's very hard to see the change in a mirror unless other people tell me.

IkmoIkmo · 3 years ago

Would be cool to see two comparison pictures (no head needed). 110lbs is a fantastic result, I wonder if it’s hard to see for you because it was a gradual change?

IkmoIkmo commented on The Economist tracks excess deaths economist.com/graphic-det... · Posted by u/Zigurd

wanderingmind · 4 years ago

Most countries in western Europe and many states seem to have less than 10 ℅ excess deaths in 2021. There is also likely to be an error that is not quoted here. Typically such comparisons must be made on 10 year average data and the changes within those years will provide the error which is likely to have variation of 5-10 ℅

IkmoIkmo · 4 years ago

> Most countries in western Europe and many states seem to have less than 10 ℅ excess deaths in 2021

That may well be true, but it cannot in and of itself be a reason to decide to relax measures.

It's like saying the number of traffic accidents are low, thus we can abolish drivers licenses, speed limits, age limits on driving, alcohol limits on driving, seatbelts etc.

No: the measures (e.g. seatbelts) cause the good results (low traffic deaths). Simply looking at the good results can never in and of itself be a reason to remove the measures.

You'd want to evidence that the desirable results will remain without the measures, before removing the measures. e.g. if there's evidence that removing speeding limits does not impact traffic accidents/deaths, then you can remove the limit.

IkmoIkmo commented on The Economist tracks excess deaths economist.com/graphic-det... · Posted by u/Zigurd

dharmatva · 4 years ago

I like how this tracker doesn't talk much about India or China at all (even though there were 2.3m deaths due to COVID there according to the Economist).

Interestingly, they do talk about Japan, South Korea, etc.

IkmoIkmo · 4 years ago

Omission of China was very strange. I get that you may not have data. But to not mention that fact, when it's 1/5th of the world population, ostensibly the point of origin of Covid-19, and a country where most people are curious as to the effectiveness of its policies, is weird. Together with India it was one of the first countries I Ctrl+F'd out of interest.

John Hopkins' sources do cover India, at 600k excess deaths (table at the bottom). Also covers China at just 4000 or so, clearly wrong. But it's not clear anymore which figures are right or wrong, as the table contains much of the exact same data as the Economist article on most other countries. Seems like there's a data consolidation happening in the background from many different sources, you'd have to review the methodologies of each yourself (or trust the news reporting to highlight doubts or margins of error, but if they report China without comment as having just 4000 excess death in ±2 years, you obviously can't do that).

https://time.com/5800901/coronavirus-map/

IkmoIkmo commented on The Economist tracks excess deaths economist.com/graphic-det... · Posted by u/Zigurd

pelasaco · 4 years ago

how should i interpret this chart?

- Australia and Germany did well, Peru not so much?

- The Swedish COVID-19 Response wasn't a disaster[1]

- Brazil didn't make so bad as widely reported by the media?

References:

[1]: https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

IkmoIkmo · 4 years ago

In terms of excess death, those are correct interpretations. But a true measure of successful policy would've been some kind of death vs impact, corrected for difficult factor.

Death is what the article covers. Impact would be the cost of the policy on everything else, e.g. mental health due to lockdowns, kids' learning falling behind due to lockdowns, bankruptcies and debt due to lockdowns etc.

Some countries were able to get the same results with fewer strict lockdown measures of other countries, those countries can be said to be more successful.

Of course one could correct for difficulty factor. That's a gray area. For example, do you include Japanese culture of masking and rule abidance? Depends on your perspective. But in any case, it's clear that countries with for example an average age of 18 like Nigeria, will be less impacted as a country like Italy, where the average person is 46. Knowing 50% of the population is almost over 50, make a big medical difference. Similarly, countries with high population density will do better than countries with little population density, etc.

There's a ton of these factors that determine 'difficulty factor'. As such it's hard to really say who did well and who didn't.

But no, Sweden wasn't a disaster. Australia and Germany did quite well, but Australia had some harsh measures that must be taken into account. Brazil indeed wasn't the worst of the bunch (although a top-25 spot is certainly not a good look, especially as only one other country in that list of 25 (Russia) has more absolute deaths, and outside the top 25 only the US has more, 600 thousand dead in Brazil is a disaster if you ask me, it's >10 years of homicides worth of death, in a country known for some of the worst gun violence and gang violence in the world.

IkmoIkmo commented on My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer software.rajivprab.com/20... · Posted by u/ingve

mgaunard · 4 years ago

I don't understand how he's spending so little.

I spend 40k per year on housing alone, and my apartment isn't particularly luxurious.

IkmoIkmo · 4 years ago

roommates

IkmoIkmo commented on This year, Oculus has sold more headsets than Microsoft did Xboxes twitter.com/cdixon/status... · Posted by u/binarynate

fogihujy · 4 years ago

Why would anyone buy a new Xbox? Most people I know still have regular HD TV's, and six year-old Xbox one or PS4 will do just fine for most of their needs.

There are very few games that won't work -- or have performance issues -- with the previous generation. Most are just the regular FIFA/NHL/Madden stuff, with the occasional overhyped mishap like CP2077.

It's the same situation as with the Xbox 360 -- as long as the previous generations can play the currently popular games, people won't upgrade. Hell, in the Microsoft Store, it's still remakes of 360-era games like GTA V and Skyrim that are being used to advertise the new consoles. No thanks my 360 still works fine! :D

The supply chain issues are only making it worse.

IkmoIkmo · 4 years ago

Agreed, in a lot of cases it makes little sense to upgrade. That's true just about always when you don't have a 4k TV.

When you do have a 4k TV and it's large enough, a PS5 can look a lot better. Especially versus the regular PS4 (rather than the PS4 Pro).

But historically the Playstations are known for upgrades every 6-7 years (from 1994 to 2000, to 2006, to 2013, to 2020), and then a support of about 3-4 years after, for a 10-year lifecycle.

The PS5 has been out for a year, making a PS5 exclusive at this time that's totally specialised for the hardware makes little sense. There's 14 million PS5s out there, and 115 million PS4s.

But the big games are in the pipeline that utilise the PS5 hardware specifically, and after a while these new games won't run on 4 anymore, or will, but will look a lot better on the 5 or be very slow on the 4.

Paying scalper prices makes no sense at the moment, but the PS5 will eventually take over the 4. If you can get one at retail prices, I'd rather have one sooner than later, if you're switching some day anyway. The loading-time improvements are quite nice.

IkmoIkmo commented on This year, Oculus has sold more headsets than Microsoft did Xboxes twitter.com/cdixon/status... · Posted by u/binarynate

2-718-281-828 · 4 years ago

And I would also like to buy one. But as far as I understood a Facebook account which I refuse to create is required for that. I found conflicting information on that - would someone maybe care to competently clarify on that?

Do you need a Facebook account or not to use an OQ2?

As a matter of fact I still have an Oculus account from Go days and I just checked - it's still active apparently.

Got the following disclaimer after logging in:

################################################################

Enhance Your VR Experience With a Facebook Account

To access social features, you need to log in with a Facebook account by going to Facebook Settings in the Oculus app.

What Happens if You Don’t Log In With a Facebook Account

You can use your Oculus account until January 1, 2023, but you will not have access to social features with your Oculus account. Starting January 1, 2023, we will end formal support for Oculus accounts, and you will need to log in with a Facebook account to access full functionality on the Oculus platform.

################################################################

Still have very very fond memories of the Go. Virtual virtual reality and Wander f.x. were amazing experiences. But I sold the device in anticipation of a newer model and having been can't waiting now for it since several years ago. So that's due.

IkmoIkmo · 4 years ago

On the whole FB account, does it require you to actually do anything with it? Can it literally just be an e-mail and random password, which only logs into the Oculus. If so, what's the problem?