edzillion (u/edzillion)

edzillion commented on Dr John C. Clark, a scientist who disarmed atomic bombs twice daxe.substack.com/p/disar... · Posted by u/vinnyglennon

gjm11 · 7 months ago

This is wrong.

I would prefer not to die soon, not only because it would be unpleasant but also because my death would be inconvenient for my employer, distressing for my friends and family, bad for charities I donate to, etc. And also because there are various things I would like to do that, if I get hit by a car tomorrow, I will never get to do.

(The last sentence is debatable. You might say that my preferences just evaporate and stop mattering at all when I die. I wouldn't agree, but I don't have a knock-down counterargument.)

edzillion · 7 months ago

You listed: > my death would be inconvenient for my employer

_first?!_

I believe you have your priorities wrong. Most regret not spending enough time with their loved ones. You only get one life after all.

edzillion commented on Hacker in Snowflake extortions may be a U.S. soldier krebsonsecurity.com/2024/... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

the_af · a year ago

I know linking to videos on a tangent joke is frowned upon here, but I'll risk the downvotes for a worthy cause:

You really need to watch this Key & Peele & Rocket Jump colaboration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHQr0HCIN2w

Actually, since I'm actually undercover as you, and I've already watched it...

edzillion · a year ago

I know comments commending the previous post are also frowned upon but that is one of the funniest sketches I've ever seen. Hilarity ad absurdum

edzillion commented on Researchers accurately dating a 7k-year-old settlement using cosmic rays phys.org/news/2024-05-suc... · Posted by u/wglb

edzillion · 2 years ago

Interesting. This should also shed some light on the [Dispilio Tablet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispilio_Tablet) - which seems to feature some kind of archaic script (the oldest yet found, if the dating is correct) They have not yet published though.

edzillion commented on Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud (2020) vice.com/en/article/z3vem... · Posted by u/bentcorner

dagw · 2 years ago

I (and many of my friends) basically learned how to read English playing LSL and the early Quest games. And yes memorising the answers to LSL 1 age verification questions taught us a lot about US culture (we learnt about the secret skip key much later).

edzillion · 2 years ago

10 year old me: who the hell is Spiro Agnew?!!?

edzillion commented on Suspicious discontinuities (2020) danluu.com/discontinuitie... · Posted by u/explosion-s

gottorf · 2 years ago

Devil's advocate: the longer you stay away from gainful employment, the more marketable skills you lose. (This is one of the arguments against a minimum wage; that it keeps low-skill and therefore low-pay labor from establishing a foothold in the labor marketplace that would enable them to up-skill over time.) So UBI would incentivize the creation of a permanently unemployable underclass.

I'm OK with people not working if they don't want to, too, as long as those people are OK with subsistence-level living standards. I don't see why able-bodied people who are capable of working but just don't want to should live a comfortable life at the expense of the working taxpayer.

edzillion · 2 years ago

Point taken, Mr. Devil. I even agree, up to a point - and I think this might be a major issue in the immediate introduction of a UBI. The reason why is that the incentives will change but there will be many who have learned the system under different conditions and will not so easily adjust.

I've grown up amongst poverty and while I don't particularly like the term (as it tends to be deployed in aid of demagoguery), there really is a element of 'welfare culture' in effect, and having been on welfare myself (and treated like a prince because bizarrely the system was obviously classist: so Ed you're an out of work indie game dev and you're currently learning something called 'Nim'? "well that's just great then have some money". Go in there as a bricklayer and say you are looking but haven't found any work the past few weeks: here are 20 forms). I was always very impressed on the knowledge these working class labourers would have of the welfare system, because in their situation it really made a difference.

Their attidue was: (and who can blame them) fuck the govt they don't give a shit about me, the more I get / the more I can play the system, the better.

UBI from their perspective would be total victory. No more queuing no more forms or interviews, just free money for ever. But what then?

If the UBI was only sufficient for survival / dignity but not enough for luxury I think the psychological topology chances a lot and what could be previously described as 'getting one over on this enemy' now can only be described as your own failure.

edzillion commented on Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order bbc.co.uk/news/technology... · Posted by u/ode

gnfargbl · 2 years ago

> This sounds too fantastical to be true.

Use Firestick as RDP/VNC client, use mobile phone for internet, obtain keyboard from Amazon Shopping, remote into a VM, proceed as usual?

edzillion · 2 years ago

Use phone, ring overworked admin.

edzillion commented on US Secret Service: “blockchain is an opportunity to track money” coinpaper.com/1505/us-sec... · Posted by u/paulpauper

tehjoker · 3 years ago

Def seems like it's involved in whatever is the next evolution of BCCI.

Can read more about it in this book. I'm not sure where to find the definitive account.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/american-exception-empire-and-...

edzillion · 3 years ago

Whitney Webb's new book also has a lot of detail on BCCI

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51074723-one-nation-unde...

edzillion commented on Zillions and Zillions etymonline.com/columns/po... · Posted by u/yuchi

edzillion · 3 years ago

How very cromulent.

edzillion commented on Yale’s 367-year-old water bond still pays interest (2015) news.yale.edu/2015/09/22/... · Posted by u/niklasbuschmann

User23 · 3 years ago

> FWIW there are plenty of schools still operating that are older than this bond

There are, or at least recently were, 62 such schools. Indeed, besides the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Parliaments of Iceland and the Isle of Man, every organization in the western world that's been continuously operating since 1530 is a university[1]. I believe this is why it's critically important that universities remain focused on their timeless mission rather than chasing secular fads. The Buxton index, described in the below link, is an incredibly important concept.

[1] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/E...

edzillion · 3 years ago

> My third remark introduces you to the Buxton Index, so named after its inventor, Professor John Buxton, at the time at Warwick University. The Buxton Index of an entity, i.e. person or organization, is defined as the length of the period, measured in years, over which the entity makes its plans. For the little grocery shop around the corner it is about 1/2,for the true Christian it is infinity, and for most other entities it is in between: about 4 for the average politician who aims at his re-election, slightly more for most industries, but much less for the managers who have to write quarterly reports. The Buxton Index is an important concept because close co-operation between entities with very different Buxton Indices invariably fails and leads to moral complaints about the partner. The party with the smaller Buxton Index is accused of being superficial and short-sighted, while the party with the larger Buxton Index is accused of neglect of duty, of backing out of its responsibility, of freewheeling, etc.. In addition, each party accuses the other one of being stupid. The great advantage of the Buxton Index is that, as a simple numerical notion, it is morally neutral and lifts the difference above the plane of moral concerns. The Buxton Index is important to bear in mind when considering academic/industrial co-operation.

edzillion commented on “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo” and the ambiguous history of counting-out rhymes (2015) theparisreview.org/blog/2... · Posted by u/thunderbong

edzillion · 3 years ago

There is also another interesting unwritten rule of the English language at play here. The rule goes like this:

In a series of words which differ only (or mostly) by the vowel used, the order should be e, i, a, o

- tic tac toe

- flim flam

- ding dong

- king kong

If you doubt it, try saying the opposite and hear how odd it sounds: The clock went 'Tock Tick'