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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: December 26th, 2023

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  • In addition to the raw compute power, the HP laptop comes with a:

    • monitor
    • keyboard/trackpad
    • charger
    • windows 11
    • active cooling system
    • enclosure

    I’ve been looking for a lapdock [0], and the absolute low-end of the market goes for over $200, which is already more expensive than the hp laptop despite spending no money on any actual compute components.

    Granted, this is because lapdocks are a fairly niche product that are almost always either a luxury purchase (individual users) or a rounding error (datacenter users)

    [0] Keyboard/monitor combo in a laptop form factor, but without a built in computer. It is intended to be used as an interface to an external computer (typically a smartphone or rackmounted server).




  • At a $188 price point. An additional 4GB of memory would probably add ~$10 to the cost, which is over a 5% increase. However, that is not the only component they cheaped out on. The linked unit also only has 64GB of storage, which they should probably increase to have a usable system …

    And soon you find that you just reinvented a mid-market device instead of the low-market device you were trying to sell.

    4GB of ram is still plenty to have a functioning computer. It will not be as capable of a more powerful computer, but that comes with the territory of buying the low cost version of a product.






  • If that were the case then they would have written that into their constitution 70 years ago. And they wouldn’t have assasinated their own prime minister 30 years ago.

    Heck, the current minister of national security Ben-Gvir was rejecting from mandatory constriction by the IDF, and convicted in an Israeli court of supporting (Jewish) terrorism after being indicted by an Israeli prosecutor.

    These are not things that happen in a country that is unified in its goals.


  • The Israeli government has no idea what it is doing. Literally. The current government was a barely held together coalition prior to October 7. In the direct aftermath, they formed a unity government and war cabinet that collapsed last week.

    Their prime minister has been indicated on corruption and bribertmy charges, which are currently on hold for obvious reasons. By most indications his primary motivation in this matter is to stay in power himself, with Israel’s national interests being secondary.

    Individual members of IDF leadership have called Israel’s stated objectives “unachievable”.

    Israel simultaneously wants to live in peace as a liberal Jewish state without commiting any form of ethnic clensing; and achieve its manifest destiny of establishing a Jewish theocracy across Judea and Samaria.

    These are deep questions that get to the core of what Israel is and stands for. Questions that are to be answered by the Israeli constitution in the 50s. That never happened because Israel was never able to agree on a constitution [0].

    Right now, Israel is just reacting, without any long term strategic vision. Various factions are trying to use that chaos to advance their own long term vision.

    [0] Which led to the big judicial reform constitutional crisis that was a giant political crisis before October.


  • Because the thing people refer to when they say “linux” is not actually an operating system. It is a family of operating systems built by different groups that are built mostly the same way from mostly the same components (which, themselves are built by separate groups).


  • The downpayment requirements are much looser now then they used to be. Pretty much anyone in the US can get as low as 3 to 3.5% down, which means the down payment can easily be less than all the other home buying expenses (closing cost, inspection, title insurance, loan origination, moving, transfer taxes, …). You also typically have a month before you need to make your first principle repayment, which helps offset the down payment.

    Veterans, active service members, and people buying in qualified rural areas can get 0 down mortgages.

    Depending on where you live, there might be further assistance available. Around here, the county offers (means tested) down-payment assistance loans that cover 100% the minimum down payment, and has an interest rate that is at least 2% lower than that of the main loan. They also wave all transfer taxes for all first time buyers.


  • For now. Unfourtuantly, that is not the way wars work.

    First of all, Hezbolla is part of the Lebanese government (and has a more powerful military than Lebanon proper), so the chance of Lebanon supporting an Israeli campaign against Hezbolla is effectively nil.

    Second of all, Israel is clearly on an escalatory ladder since October 7, and has shown no interest in getting off. The conflict between Israel and Hezbolla has been a thing since Hezbollas founding, and has escalated to wars before. However, this latest round of conflict is clearly an escallation of the war in Gaza. An escallation that both Israel and Hezbolla keep poking at.

    Unless Israel changes its stance, this is not going to end with a war in Lebanon. Remember Iran? Back in April, Israel launched a largely unprovoked attack on Iran in Syria, killing a fairly high ranking member of Iran’s military (along with others, including some Syrian civilians).

    In addition to being a potential war crime (they bombed a diplomatic building, although there is an argument that the details make it allowed under intetnational law), this was also simply an act of war against Syria and Iran. 2 countries that Israel is not at war with, and which are clearly not interested in going to war.

    Syrua let Israel off with a finger wagging. Iran let Israel off with a telegraphed missile strike that they knew had a high chance of being completely intercepted. Or at least they tried to, But Israel couldn’t take the win, and so launched another strike against Iran. Similar to Iran, Israel calculated this one to be limited. However, unlike Israel, Iran took the opportunity to back off.

    Netenyahu specifically has been trying to start a war with Iran for decades, and is now actively escalating with Iranian proxies.

    From the US perspective, this is frustrating because this is exactly what we have been warning Israel about, and exactly what Israel has been ignoring us about. You could argue that October 7 and the subsequent war are a consequence of decades of Israeli policy combided with a tactical/intelligence failure allowing the specific attack to succeed.

    However the current round of escallation with Hezbolla is a direct and predictable consequence of the strategic decisions that Israel has made in responce to October 7. Strategic decisions that the entire world had cautioned them against. Strategic decisions that senior IDF leaders have admitted cannot possibly achieve their objectives.

    When this escalates into a full scale regional war with Iran, that will also have been a consequence of Israeli strategic decisions. And the US will again be asked to bail them out






  • Blaise Pascal is famous for 2 things:

    1. Pascal’s triangle. This describes how to expand expresions of the form (a+b)^n as well as to compute how many ways there are to pick k objects out of a set of n (ignoring order.

    This triangle is computed by starting with 1 at the tip, then having each element be the some of its 2 parents (except the diagonal edges with only one parent, which remains as 1)

    1. Pascal’s wager. This is a theological argument for a belief in god that goes “if you believe and god doesn’t exist, nothing happens. If you don’t believe and he does exist, you suffer for eternity. The logical choice is therefore to believe”

    The natural conclusion is therefore to believe in all gods. If procelatizing happens in just the right way, and no one realizes people are talking about the same god, you end up with a triangle of polytheists, where the number of gods they believe in is given by Pascal’s triangle.

    Edit: gid -> god



  • Line item vetoes are one thing (which I oppose, but can understand).

    The veto in question turns “2024-25” into “2425”

    Looking the the Wisconsin constitution, there seems to be 2 relevant sections:

    The first is the authority for partial vetoes.

    Appropriations may be approved in whole or in part by the chief executive officer.

    In my opinion, this already does not authorize, the type of creative vetoing the governor tried.

    However, the constitution goes on to clarify:

    In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill, and may not create a new sentence by combining parts of 2 or more sentences of the enrolled bill.

    It would take an obtusely literal reading of these provisions to allow for striking individual digits and puncuation marks to create new numbers.

    https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/constitution/wi_unannotated