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dwighteb commented on Limb lengthening surgery is becoming more popular   buzzfeednews.com/article/... · Posted by u/edward
chrischen · 3 years ago
Lucky for short people, height is a lot less of a factor in modern society. Wealth is a much bigger factor. And what's the best path to wealth? Software. Even more lucky for them, software and internet doesn't care about height.
dwighteb · 3 years ago
What is not so lucky for short people is how our modern society rewards tall people with more wealth. S&P 500 CEO’s have an average height of 6ft, compared to the average height of 5ft10in in the US. Also, 30 percent of SP500 CEO’s are 6ft2in or taller, compared to only 3.9 percent of the rest of the US population.

These things matter across the board, not just in the top tier management positions. Each inch of height adds $789 of average yearly salary, which makes a huge difference between a 5ft5 in person compared to someone who is 6ft tall. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/naija-fashion/2...

dwighteb commented on Deliberately optimizing for harm   science.org/content/blog-... · Posted by u/herodotus
derefr · 3 years ago
On a tangent: it occurred to me recently that we also don't see much use of ICBMs with non-nuclear payloads, despite these being a fairly-obvious "dominant strategy" for warfare — and one that isn't banned by any global treaties.

I'm guessing the problem with these is that, in practice, a country can't use any weapons system that could potentially be used to "safely" deliver a nuclear payload (i.e. to deliver one far-enough away that the attacking country would not, itself, be affected by the fallout) without other countries' anti-nuke defenses activating. After all, you could always say you're shooting ICBMs full of regular explosive payloads, but then slip a nuke in. There is no honor in realpolitik.

So, because of this game-theoretic equilibrium, any use of the stratosphere for ballistic weapons delivery is effectively forbidden — even though nobody's explicitly asking for it to be.

It's interesting to consider how much scarier war could be right now, if we hadn't invented nuclear weapons... random missiles just dropping down from the sky for precision strikes, in countries whose borders have never even been penetrated.

dwighteb · 3 years ago
Interesting tangent I hadn’t considered before. However, China is testing some ballistic anti ship missiles. https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/11/aircraft-carrie...

To be fair, if these become a reality, they would likely strike targets in the Pacific Ocean and South China Seas, far away from the US, but the potential to spook nuclear nations is still there.

dwighteb commented on Latvia wants permanent U.S. troops, foreign minister tells Blinken   reuters.com/world/latvia-... · Posted by u/mudro_zboris
djrogers · 4 years ago
Presumably it would be in the interest of the EU to prevent coups within their member states, so the EU Army would defend against them.

That would have the advantage of removing the most common source of coups - a corrupt military leadership.

dwighteb · 4 years ago
I’m not against an EU military in principle, so my question isn’t loaded, but genuine curiosity. What would prevent an EU Army from possibly forming a corrupt military leadership?
dwighteb commented on Google Search Is Dying   dkb.io/post/google-search... · Posted by u/dbrereton
jedwhite · 4 years ago
Yes, but you can't add a new search engine at all! So if a search engine isn't one of the tiny number of options in that dropdown, you can't change to it. That applies on both iOS and MacOS. And that option is used for the entire system-wide search, not just Safari.

So here's a challenge, try adding a search engine not on that list. You can see the search engine I'm working on in my profile if you're interested (I don't want to hijack this thread with self-promotion). I challenge you to change to a new competitive option like it. You simply can't. That is a clear monopoly over distribution.

On desktop in Chrome, as noted it is not something any typical consumer can do easily. But even if they could, Google does not allow you to set the New Tab to another search engine, even by setting the homepage to one. So every new tab opened on Chrome takes you back to Google search, even if a consumer figures out how to change their homepage. As for changing the nav bar search, no ordinary consumer is going to be able to work out how to change a search URL pattern. That is clearly intended to prevent consumers changing.

So I stand by my point, especially on an iPhone, you simply cannot change your search engine to a new search engine like us. It is impossible.

dwighteb · 4 years ago
I see your point. I would have sworn that DuckDuckGo was added as a search entry when I installed that app on my ios device, however my memory is hazy from that long ago, so perhaps that search engine was added at a different point, like when it became big enough for Apple to notice them.
dwighteb commented on Google Search Is Dying   dkb.io/post/google-search... · Posted by u/dbrereton
jedwhite · 4 years ago
There's a reason why it seems shocking that Google has been able to balance the ads well enough that people still use it. They haven't! Google has orchestrated a monopoly over search engine distribution that allows them to get away with search results that are dominated by ads and spam, without losing most consumers.

Let's be blunt here - almost no consumer consciously chooses to use Google search anymore. Google has a distribution monopoly through Android, its deal with Apple on iOS and MacOS, and on desktop through Chrome.

I'm working on a search engine startup. It is in all practical senses impossible for an iPhone or Mac user to change their search engine to a new search engine on Safari or at the iOS level. And despite being technically possible on desktop with Chrome, it is for all practical purposes beyond what any typical consumer can easily do.

Their monopoly over distribution - not search result quality - is what keeps consumers searching Google and clicking ads.

dwighteb · 4 years ago
> It is in all practical senses impossible for an iPhone or Mac user to change their search engine to a new search engine on Safari or at the iOS level.

On my IOS device, under Settings -> Safari -> Search Engine, I have a drop down with options, including Bing and DuckDuckgo, but defaulted to google.

On Macos, with Safari running, Safari -> Preferences… -> Search, Search Engine I have a drop down, defaulted to google, with Bing and DuckDuckgo amongst other choices.

Agreed on google”s effort to get their search engine as the default. However I just don’t understand how changing search engine is impossible given what I’m seeing on my devices? Nor does it seem over the top onerous to my eyes.

dwighteb commented on The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees   decrypt.co/34047/the-most... · Posted by u/timcc50
staplers · 5 years ago
This happens all the time with wire transfers. It's no different. Banks don't care.

Example: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2018/05/24/central-florida...

dwighteb · 5 years ago
I didn't see where the banks are at fault in the above article. It appeared that the woman received a fraudulent email on where to wire the money. This fraudulent email did not come from the banks. So, how could they be liable if she provided them bad information? GIGO. I'm not saying banks care, just this article doesn't highlight that very well.
dwighteb commented on 150,000 cloud virtual machines will help solve mysteries of the Universe   arstechnica.com/informati... · Posted by u/eLobato
eLobato · 12 years ago
Yes! I'm particularly writing stuff for the baremetal IPMI, as far as I know we don't have any of this on production though
dwighteb · 12 years ago
Sounds like a fun opportunity! And yeah, that's fair - I doubt anybody has baremetal via OpenStack in production yet. Looks like it was added in the Grizzly release. I'll have to check this out.
dwighteb commented on 150,000 cloud virtual machines will help solve mysteries of the Universe   arstechnica.com/informati... · Posted by u/eLobato
eLobato · 12 years ago
If anyone has any questions about this, I'm part of one of the teams mentioned on the article and I'll be happy to answer them
dwighteb · 12 years ago
Thanks for fielding questions - the article mentioned bare metal provisioning with OpenStack. Are you planning on using this https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Baremetal ? Another method I could envision would be using LXC's as the back end for compute instead of KVM, giving users self provisioning closer to the metal - I just wanted to clarify what method was planned.

u/dwighteb

KarmaCake day68May 1, 2012View Original