I don’t play chess, like maybe once every few years at most, so I know nothing about the patterns. But I noticed that pros usually made moves that put their opponent in an equal or worse predicament than their own.

A friend who regularly played speed chess played against me, without time limit of course because that would’ve been a stomp. I used the simple principle I figured out above and was winning for most of the game.

I basically depth-first searched every single move (the game lasted nearly three hours though).

I only lost at the end because I got tired and stopped doing the exhausting search in my mind.

Sharpie enough to control hurricanes.

In that scenario, I agree the pragmatic choice is to save the majority.

But many situations tend to be complex and aren’t as clear as a trolley problem, so I want to avoid falling into the trap of seeing a false dilemma when there’s possibly more than two options.

Those are already arguments for why NASA and space programs shouldn’t exist in the first place.

I remember watching something about the space race, and there was a clip of public opinion during the time of the first mission to the moon, where a man complained that the money should’ve been used to improve the lives of poor Americans instead.

Regardless, for the scenario in The Martian, if money is already being spent and going to continue being spent on space missions in the future, I think you can rationalize it as using money for another or next space mission. They would still gain knowledge from what they had to do to pull off that rescue, so it’s not a complete waste of funds for a mission either.

On the morality point, I’d argue that we should spend the money to rescue any person if we have the money/means, and it can feasibly happen without excessive risk to other lives, otherwise we’re assigning monetary value to human lives. That includes both people in imminent danger, requiring expensive emergency services, and people suffering slower, persistent risks like hunger that require sustained support.

European regulators “are looking at putting pressure on the European Union regarding deregulation. We think Europe has the prospect of doing better than they had in the past,” Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone’s CEO and cofounder, told The Financial Times.

I’m not European, but I don’t exactly like the sound of that.

Well, coincidentally, the very first Technology Connections video I watched was an hour-long one about dishwashers (yes, lol). And it was actually shared to me through Discord.

The dishwasher is actually better than what most people think, but a lot of them don’t know that they’re using it wrong.

I genuinely wanted to understand more about that supposed contradiction, but frankly, that article was one of the worst, most tedious, painful articles I’ve ever tried to read. It was vague, repetitive, and reeks of AI-generated slop.

A laundry basket with legs that you can fold out.

I have to hang-dry my laundry (I live in Japan), so being able to raise the basket high enough so that I don’t have to bend to the ground every time to grab the next item is worth it.

Technically, it’s not that recent, nor that expensive, but it was like double the price of the laundry basket next to it at the store.

They should program a timer set to the tune of a nice, friendly song that will gently remind the driver to exit the circle in time.

Mark Waters says sales at his Odessa, Texas, tools business, which he describes as a “Home Depot for the oilfields,” are down about 10 percent. He does not regret voting for Trump, saying he is willing to take a personal hit to support the president’s agenda. But he said it is ironic that over the decades he has made a lot more money when the party he despises is in power. “The oil business has thrived under Democratic leadership despite them being true haters of all things fossil,” Waters said. “For whatever reason, I made millions of dollars under Clinton. Then I made even more under Obama and Biden. I have never had a solid explanation.” His business outlook for the coming months under Trump? “Hopefully it won’t be catastrophic,” Waters said.

Almost some self-awareness there. Almost.

I have a friend who has aphantasia, but she can still draw somehow. Drawing from observation and using reference images isn’t bad either. Every artist does it.

Sure, I might be able to rotate a 3D cow in my brain, but I still need to look at a picture if I want to make my drawing look really nice or somewhat realistic.

While not what you’re asking for, but fun fact, in Asia, this sort of paradox is represented by the story of the all-piercing spear and the unpierceable shield in Chinese philosophy. So in Chinese and Japanese, the word for ‘paradox’ or ‘contradiction’ literally means ‘spear-shield’ (矛盾).

Another great post from Cory Doctorow. Thank you for the link!

However, another key distinction listed in the Wikipedia article is that the “Geneva Conventions declare that mercenaries are not recognized as legitimate combatants and do not have to be granted the same legal protections as captured service personnel of the armed forces.” So it’s an even riskier business.

Been to Louisiana. Can confirm.

I don’t think he wasn’t praising himself there. I interpreted it as calling himself foolish.

You can call that a majority, but it’s far from a vast majority. That’s just a little more than half, and about on par with the general population, actually.

I disagree. Apple might not be perfect, but it is better than Google when it comes to ads and tracking. I know my data is encrypted, both on the device and in my cloud. And in the App Store, it tells me exactly what data is being collected by the apps I choose to install.

At least the names of all the bases named after Confederates were changed a few years ago. West Point also renamed things that were named after Lee (which only existed because for the sake of Reconciliation after the war).