mesofile (u/mesofile)

mesofile commented on Why are so many pedestrians killed by cars in the US? construction-physics.com/... · Posted by u/thelastgallon

mesofile · 4 months ago

Besides the many other factors mentioned by commenters here, I'll add one other: drivers in the US rarely face consequences for killing pedestrians or, for that matter, other drivers, even when it's the result of willfully negligent or reckless behavior. It's such a longstanding trend that it's become a meme: if you want to get away with murder, make sure to kill your victim with a car. "I didn't see them/I made mistake" works so well that authorities just don't bring charges, because juries are so willing to accept this excuse. Perhaps because so many of them can see themselves doing the same thing.

See: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-the-u-s-so-good-at-k...

mesofile commented on We all dodged a bullet xeiaso.net/notes/2025/we-... · Posted by u/WhyNotHugo

mikewarot · 5 months ago

>Saved by procrastination!

Seriously, this is one of my key survival mechanisms. By the time I became system administrator for a small services company, I had learned to let other people beta test things. We ran Microsoft Office 2000 for 12 years, and saved soooo many upgrade headaches. We had a decade without the need to retrain.

That, and like other have said... never clicking links in emails.

mesofile · 5 months ago

This is how I feel about my Honda, and to some extent, Kubernetes. In the former case I kept a 2006 model in good order for so long I skipped at least two (automobile) generation's worth of car-to-phone teething problems, and after years of hearing people complain about their woes I've found the experience of connecting my iphone to my '23 car pretty hassle-free. In the latter, I am finally moving a bunch of workloads out of EC2 after years of nudging from my higher-ups and, while it's still far from a simple matter I feel like the managed solutions in EKS and GKE have matured and greatly lessen the pain of migrating to K8S. I can only imagine what I would have gotten bogged down with had I promptly acted on my bosses' suggestion to do this six or seven years ago. (I also feel very lucky that the people I work for let me move on these things in my own due time.)

mesofile commented on Income Equality in Nordic Countries: Myths, Facts, and Lessons aeaweb.org/articles?id=10... · Posted by u/jandrewrogers

sollewitt · 5 months ago

There’s that study that found Italian families who were wealthy during the renaissance are still wealthy.

Sweden had a very powerful monarchy (the dominant Baltic power at one point) and an aristocracy but never a revolution. I’d expect a lot of wealth inequality based on inherited wealth.

mesofile · 5 months ago

A number of articles and at least one well-known study have been published highlighting the fact that the ranks of the wealthiest landowning families in Britain are nearly unchanged since Norman times — e.g. https://www.medievalists.net/2014/11/englands-1-remained-sin...

mesofile commented on 1Password Is Down status.1password.com... · Posted by u/Geenirvana

jsheard · 9 months ago

Looks like it's isolated to the US instance, the instances in Canada and Europe are all green. I moved my account over to EU recently so that's a bullet dodged.

mesofile · 9 months ago

back up for me (in the US) now https://status.1password.com/incidents/sfrpk9dskthr

mesofile commented on China is developing some startling new kit in its quest to invade Taiwan economist.com/china/2025/... · Posted by u/_tk_

mc32 · a year ago

Soft power is economic and cultural levers. Hardware is actual military power.

mesofile · a year ago

One term that's specific to this concept of wielding a real but unused military capability is "fleet in being" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being

mesofile commented on My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster bentasker.co.uk/posts/blo... · Posted by u/acdha

guappa · a year ago

I think at this point pig butchering is so famous that if you fall for it you'd fall for any scam.

mesofile · a year ago

Many years ago when advance-fee email scams [0] became common I was likewise amazed that anyone would fall for them. Then it was pointed out that the seemingly obvious warning signs were a feature and not a bug, they are there to filter out everyone with a minimum of common sense and ensure that the scammers, who are casting their nets wide, only get responses from a few people but those people who do respond are quite gullible. The pig butchering thing is just a different filter meant to trap a different kind of vulnerable person.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam

mesofile commented on Ukraine Will Fight On, with or Without the West reason.com/2025/03/03/ukr... · Posted by u/Bostonian

Justsignedup · a year ago

Just a note. Ukranian manufacturing has really stepped up. They are making 80% of the ammunition now.

They also have a well trained army still alive while the Russians have only conscripts with weeks of training.

Russia manufacturing is diminishing daily.

I'm not sure Russia will have any bullets left by the end of the year. And north Korean reinforcements were such a bust, they were all slaughtered.

The main worry is if the US starts buying Russian oil, but that won't be an issue if Russia can't move anything.

mesofile · a year ago

I agree the Ukrainian defense industrial base is working miracles given the situation, but my comment was specifically about major assets that not only they but the EU as a whole are not prepared to replace at this time or in the near term. Big-ticket items, not drones, cannon shells or bullets. In some cases there is a similar capability in or perhaps available to Europe but not (yet) the capacity for mass manufacture. In other cases there is nothing else even close. It's just a very very bad situation. I am currently pinning my hopes on Trump getting a lot of pushback from the US defense industry, but this seems like a slim chance as they probably expect they'll be making a lot of money in the next several years regardless of where their products are shipped.