cwmma (u/cwmma) - Readit News

cwmma commented on Why NUKEMAP isn't on Google Maps anymore (2019) blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2... · Posted by u/fanf2

jmuguy · a month ago

I came so close to getting our app off of Google Maps a few months ago, we'd be saving literally thousands a month. But the "look" of the map from open street map, map tiler, etc was deemed too different and the team was scared it would negatively impact our users. The Maps API is definitely getting worse, and the pricing setup seems like it was cooked up by someone from Microsoft. Also Maplibre and its various wrappers are so much nicer to work it.

cwmma · a month ago

Usually the 'look' is not the issue as much as the geocoder (which you are only allowed to use with a google basemap, no that clever idea you have isn't going to work), like clients are often excited to use a more customizable basemap but balk when it comes to other geocoders which are nice but are not the google one which people really really are used to.

cwmma commented on Why NUKEMAP isn't on Google Maps anymore (2019) blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2... · Posted by u/fanf2

tdeck · a month ago

Would it be possible to run an AB test?

cwmma · a month ago

not OP but the google maps API doesn't actually support other vector tiles (and other map libraries are not allowed to use the google map basemap) which means it's not easy to just have two versions of the site that differ only in basemap

cwmma commented on I wasted years of my life in crypto twitter.com/kenchangh/sta... · Posted by u/Anon84

wyck · 2 months ago

Correct, but these fees are trending up and not down, its not uncommon in this space to see payment fees hitting 15%. Removing the primitives of payment requirements, rails which are hard to build and practicably a monopoly, would free the state, this would power end-users instead of building more monopolies.

cwmma · 2 months ago

Actual payment fees are hitting a couple % max, all the rest is platform fees which are orthogonal to how you are paying. If you sell something through airbnb, they will get a cut no matter how you pay.

Credit card fees are a great deal for consumers even when they are added as a surcharge or there is a cash discount. Not having to deal with cash AND being able to dispute transactions are significant benefits.

cwmma commented on I wasted years of my life in crypto twitter.com/kenchangh/sta... · Posted by u/Anon84

wyck · 2 months ago

Imagine you have a home on Airbnb , your guest sends you a payment, but its not directly to you, the payment goes through the payment rails stipulated and controlled by airbnb. This amounts to what is often 25-35% of your listening fee (payment charges, visa network, listing fee, etc, etc.) This is the middle men crypto is supposed to replace.

Only a trustworthy network can replace the current system, it must be something public, immutable and participatory , otherwise it will just centralize back to the above scenario, regardless of any intent. Essentially crypto is network code, it creates the primitives on transmission. And thus anyone (really anyone) can run a node and get a reward for supporting this security model. That's not a scam or even just pragmatic, its literally how money operates, as a incentive/disincentive mechanism.

People forget the early stock market was filled to the brim with scams, the original intent was good, but it attracted bad actors piggy backing in its lack of regulations, and it took years to clean-up, one can make an easy argument that's its still filled with fraud.

cwmma · 2 months ago

In your example crypto would only replace the visa network. Most of the fee you are playing is to Airbnb for getting you the client in the first place.

cwmma commented on TSA's New $45 Fee at U.S. Airports Unfairly Punishes Families in the Fine Print thetravel.com/new-tsa-45-... · Posted by u/stn8188

petcat · 2 months ago

How can a VA health ID card be considered a valid ID? Maybe a supplemental ID, but I can't imagine it would be allowed as a primary ID for TSA screening.

cwmma · 2 months ago

A Veteran health ID card is a government issued photo id card used to prove your identity with the government to get health care, why wouldn't it be allowed for proving your identity with the TSA.

1. https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification

cwmma commented on The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia cnn.com/2025/11/12/busine... · Posted by u/andrewl

ryandrake · 3 months ago

Allowing gas stations to denominate their prices by the 10th of a cent has always struck me as a just an underhanded and extreme way to practice the "9.99" retail psychological trick. Why not allow retailers to price things 9.99999? Ridiculous.

cwmma · 3 months ago

It's because technically the dollar is divided into Dimes, Cents, and Mil. (this is why dimes say 'One Dime' on them instead of 'Ten Cents'.

So while the mil isn't really used anywhere else that regular people see any more due to inflation, it is a valid division of the dollar and that's why they are able to get away with it.

cwmma commented on USPS Media Mail Rules Are Arbitrary and Stupid nerdlypleasures.blogspot.... · Posted by u/HotGarbage

cwmma · 3 months ago

Any time you have to divide up a range of things into distinct buckets you get weird corner cases. Many states tax restaurant meals different from groceries and thus must decide on where the exact difference between buying a single donut (this is obviously food for now and this treated like restaurant food) and a dozen donuts (this is food for later so obviously a grocery).

Comic books are much more "magazine like" then "book like" in practice so it's not surprising they are treated similarly.

cwmma commented on Making Democracy Work: Fixing and Simplifying Egalitarian Paxos arxiv.org/abs/2511.02743... · Posted by u/otrack

keiferski · 3 months ago

There is a recurring trend of interpreting democracy to mean "leaderless consensus-based decision-making", which really doesn't work and never has. That's why Occupy and pretty much every other similar bottom-up movement failed: leaders are necessary. People follow other people, not algorithms or groups.

"Making democracy work" should be about training better leaders and getting them into the system.

cwmma · 3 months ago

You are confusing "democracy as used colloquially for government" and "democracy as used by computer scientists to design systems that still work on failure prone networks"

cwmma commented on James Watson has died nytimes.com/2025/11/07/sc... · Posted by u/granzymes

focusgroup0 · 3 months ago

>There is no objective way to measure IQ "stuff"

SAT + GPA are proxies for "IQ stuff" and are highly predictive of future academic success:

https://international.collegeboard.org/toolkit/sat-policy/un...

cwmma · 3 months ago

So first off, no shit the college board things the SAT measures good stuff, it's their test.

Second nobody said the SATs don't measure something, but that something is ability to take an SAT test which is highly predictive of how well you can take other tests. Which as our society puts lots of stock into tests isn't nothing but it's not measuring anything inate.

cwmma commented on James Watson has died nytimes.com/2025/11/07/sc... · Posted by u/granzymes

morgengold · 3 months ago

thanks graemep andand patall for taking the time. It is amazing to see a man of high intelligence like Watson is not able to base is views on the evidence.

For me, I work usally with the assumption: "Even if there existed small differences IQ between races explained by genetics, it never tells you something about the individual before you."

Would you say this is a valid belief?

cwmma · 3 months ago

That's like saying:

"Even if there was small differences in honesty caused by being a Spaniard, it never tells you something about the individual before you."

When there is no actual evidence of Spaniards being dishonest and the only people making the argument seem to already have a beef with the people of Spain.