homura1650

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

Overall, the dissent is good. But it makes 1 fundamental mistake of constitutional analysis:

The Constitution cannot be evaded by such formalistic distinctions

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.

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.

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.

pretty

You monster!

Without the courts, the law stands. The Supreme Court is not the problem here. The Republican legislature is. The Supreme Court is supposed to be a check on the legislature; and their failure to do that is a problem.

Also, this case is not about women's rights, it is about trans rights. Trans men are impacted too.

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).

Trump did experience more racial discrimination in housing than most black people ever will.

https://clearinghouse.net/case/15342/

Miniaturization is amazing. The limiting factor to how powerful we can make phones is not space to put in computational units (processors,ram,etc). It is the ability to deal with the heat they generate (and the related issue of rationing a limited amount of battery power)

So? If porn is the only thing that stopped me from getting raped, then my problem is solved. I'd call that a win.

No. It is the equivalent of a PC maker going "yeah. I don't think we are going to put in a CD drive anymore because the DVD drive we have been including for years can do CDs as well"

Additionally, this judgment is for his civil fraud trial. Where he was found liable for inflating the value of his properties in order to obtain loans against them.

Given that, I can understand a general reluctance to loan against the value of his properties.

It is 34 counts, but still only a single crime. It is more analgous to robbing a single house once, but taking 34 items. Given how the bussiness records law are written, each false record is a seperate crime, but they were all done as part of the same scheme.

This is pretty common in criminal law. It is suprisingly difficult to commit only 1 crime.

Police audio from the event:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/26/baltimore-key-bridge-collapse-maryland/#link-SG74QTQZKNCI7CT3KCUCWYEZYQ

It sounds like police got their just in time to stop traffic. One of the officers says that as soon as backup arrives to take over stopping traffic he would go and evacuate the workers; when we get the report that the bridge is gone.

If you watch the stream of the crash, you can see that traffic was flowing just moments before it fell.

Especially if the American Barber Association has a rule that none of its members may participate in the haircut; and scissor manufacturers all refuse to sell to you. So you end up having it done by a random person who doesn't mind ignoring what every barber says, using a pair of rusty scissors the sherrif was able to find at a garage sale.

None of which are called terrorists by the BBC.

The BBC has a long standing policy against calling people/organizations terrorists.

Their position in this case says nothing about how they view Hamas. The position of those complaining about it says a lot about how they view the role news organizations.

I'm not familiar with Australian law, but how do you get to "discrimination on the basis of gender identity" in this case. Wouldn't the case for that be a trans man trying to join or stay on the app? (Or a cis man for that matter).

It sounds like Tickle's position is that the app should be discriminating based on gender identity. Her complaint seems more like them discriminating on (vaguely defined policy ammounting to) assigned gender at birth.

Having said that, I suspect their tune will change if a trans man tried joining.

Interestingly, according to the article, the biggest effect is in 15-19 year olds; which are the people the law is intended to bar from accessing porn. Granted, I have no idea how good the underlying study that article is based off of is.

Ramsey did not get rich from a $1 million loan.

He got rich by having $1.2 million in loans. Declaring bankruptcy, then building a financial media empire that teaches people to get rich by avoiding all debt; buying his books; attending his classes; and investing with financial advisors whom his organization carefully vets to assure that their kickback checks clear.

That was never alledged during the trial itself. There was live round practice, but it was done properly at a fireing range.

The prosecution's theory was that they came from a different set which did use live rounds. Reed brought dummies herself (instead of going through the prop house for everything) due to shortages.

The defenses theory was that their prop house messed up and provided live rounds with their dummies.

Only anti-semite would acuse Bibi of lying.

Just ask the Israeli attorney general who, in 2019, indicted him on bribery and fraud charges.

And Israel obviously has the most moral military in the world. Just ask their minister of national security: convicted criminal Itamar Ben-Gvir. Specifically, he has been convicted of supporting a terrorist organization. He also never served in the IDF, because the IDF thought he was too extreme.

Because there has not been a draft since the 70s, where automatic registration was not feasible.

Everyone who would actually know what they are doing in executions (doctors, pharmaceutical companies, veteranarians) have looked at it and said "this is barbaric in concept, no matter how humanely you do it, we will have no part in it". What you are left with is people without the relevent expertise, who do not have a problem with the barbarism, figuring out how to do it.

How is Ben-Gvir a minister? And how is the US acting like a government that would appoint him as the minister of national security is conducting this war in anything resembling an ethical way?

When he turned 18 and reported for mandatory conscription, the IDF rejected him for being too extreme.

After Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo occords, the last best chance for a peaceful resolution to this conflict, Ben-Gvir stole Rabin's hood ornament and brandished it on national television saying something to the effect of "we got his ornament, we can get Rabin". Not long after, an Israeli extremist assasinated Rabin; and with him any hope of peace.

He has since been convicted, by an Israeli court, of supporting a terrorist organization (Kach), and incirement of racism.

That is the man in charge of Israel's national security.

They probably don't do grocery shopping or pay attention that closely to their household finances. My guess would be most of them have a spouse who is aware of the increasing prices.

Random anecdote time. A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with my parents and commented on how my fridge had a stupid amount of corn since the store was practically giving it away (post memorial day. They must have overestimated the holiday surge). The conversation went to how we couldn't husk the corn in stores anymore (post covid), and my dad was adament they changed the policy to increase the weight and therefore cost.

Except, at least around here, corn is not and has never in my life been sold by weight. He had just been in the grocery store so rarely that he does not know how corn is sold. Since they have enough income to absorb the cost, he probably wouldn't be aware of the increase if not for hearing about inflation on the news.

Tanya is nothing like that. Just look at how she steadfastly upholds the law of war: https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=r8FAMFrOt_mpE_19&v=TqZz_WFPDa8&feature=youtu.be

Also her main goals are killing god, and getting promoted to a safe desk job. She's just so damn competent that they keep sending her to the front. Also, she's a man trapped in that body.

We need to fight for a rules based order!

No, not like that!

Seriously, what is the appropriate way for the world to respond to Israel?

Grassroots economic protest (bds) is literally illegal in parts of the US.

Any move in the UN security council is met with a US veto.

An ICJ investigation application is met with condemnation.

An ICC warrent application is met with not only condemnation, but a reiteration of the standing US threat to invade the Hague, or otherwise use "any person described in subsection (b) who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court" [0]. Also the mere issuing of a warrent that will likely never be excersized is already being met with the threat of sanctions.

Is there anything that the US thinks is an appropriate way of opposing Israel?

Yes! After Israel engaged in a clear act of war against Iran and Syria by bombing high ranking Iranian military officials in Syria [1], Iran launched an innefective pro-forma counter attack. The US was very clear on our position. No US military support for an Israeli reprisal. Israel shoul just "take the win" and call it a day.

In Ukraine, a country facing a much more existential threat than Israel [2], the US's position has been very clear: "no using US resources to strike within thrme borders of your attacker".

For all of its rhetoric, the actual position of the US and Israel is clear. The only form of opposition to Israeli action that they will respect is the threat of military violence. [3].

Hopefully the rules based order has enough support to stand up against the US opposition. But it is really not good that that is the conversation we are having.

[0] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-107publ206/pdf/PLAW-107publ206.pdf sec 2008

[1] The details of this strike are arguably a war crime. However weather you agree with that assessment or not, launching a missile into another country and killing military leaders is about as classic "act of war" as you can get.

[2] This is not a statement on the morals or goals of Russia compared with Gaza. Simply a statement of their military capabilities and ability to see those goals to fruition.

[3] Of course, following through on such a threat would be met with an in-kind response, but neither the US nor Israel seem to want to be fighting a capable enemy right now.

who will balance Israel's right to self defence against the horrors we're all looking at

I really hate this framing. Israel’s response has not been in Israel’s self interest. There is approximately 0% chance they will defeat Hamas, and approximately 100% chance they have hardended militant anti-Israel sentiment among Gazans for a generation. Further, they have alienated all of their potential regional allies (just as relations were starting to normalize), which is terrible for their long term security prospects in general; and their ability to resolve the Gaza problem in particular (since an ally that Gazan's can trust would be incredibly useful).

Further, Hamas is not Israel's biggest threat by far. They spent years planning an attack that only succeeded because of a massive failure on the part of the IDF; and only lasted for a day before the IDF completely steamrolled them.

As we can see know (and has been obvious from the beginning), Hezbolla in Lebanon is much greater military threat. Prior to the war, they were constrained by their rational self interest of avoiding a full war with Israel. In the beginning of the war, they made some pro-forma attacks, to which Israel offered some pro-forma responses; but things along the Israel Lebanon border were relatively quiet, because neither sude really wanted a war. However, as Israel continued its operation in Gaza, the political pressures in Lebanon grew, forcing an escallation of the conflict their. At this point, excluding the initial attack most of the damage to Israel has come not from Gaza, but Lebanon; and the IDF cannot just steamroll them.

And Israel is still in the "good case" of escalation. The elephant in the room here is Iran. As far as I can tell, Iran is not happy about this level of conflict, and is actively trying to avoid getting drawn in. However, it cannot simply abandon its proxies without massive loss of regional power. Nor can it be seen to abandon Gaza without significant internal political problems. The longer this war goes on, the greater the risk of Iran being fully dragged into it. If that happens, then everything up to this point will look like childs play. Israel will probably survive, but for the first time in decades, that will be brought into question.

None of this is new. This is the exact dynamic that was in play on October 6, when Israel's actions were fully consistent with being aware of this dynamic. When October 7th happened, it did give Israel a bit more leeway to operate in Gaza; but that has always been limited, and has been long exhausted. Now, the dynamics are effectively the same as on October 6, but Israel is making the other decision of actively poking the bear of a regional war insted of simply tiptoeing around it as they had been doing. And Israel's security suffers greatly for it.

There are 3 possibilities:

1. Israel internationally bombed a clearly marked aid convoy after being informed of and approving their route.

2. Israel internationally adopted rules of engagement so lax that they allowed for 3 accidental bombings on a clearly marked aid convoy after being informed of and approving their route.

3. All of the above.

The problem for Israel is that all of those possibilities are war crimes.

They tried to frame a guilty man.

Based on testimony and evidence presented at the Reed trial:

• He was not paying attention during his gun training.
• He broke gun protocals throughout the filming. Including fireing a (blank loaded) gun after cut was called.
• (The actual event) He pointed a "prop" gun at a real person and pulled the trigger. Even with a cleared gun, this is something that is not supposed to be done. Additionally, this was during a "blocking" session, so the camera was not even rolling. He was not supposed to be using the prop gun at all for this.

Even if the gun was loaded with blanks, this even would likely still have caused an injury (and possibly death, although likely not).

Baldwin will likely argue that Reed was supposed to know all of this and stopped him before the accident happened.

So, the "Israeli" proposal Biden was talking about is not supported by Israel.

On this specific issue, I'm not even mad at Israel. The US is free to offer potential deals. But it does not get to unilaterally declare that one side has agreed to it.

The story would be different if Israel had a history of listening to the US and caring about its image. In that case, establishing a narrative that it is an Israeli deal would put pressure Israel to accept it; as the alternative would be to loose face internationally and embarres and hurt the credibility of their ally. Even in that case, it would be a tough call, because that kind of hard ball burns a lot of political capital. However, that is a moot point, as Israel has clearly demonstrated those concerns are not a major factor in its decision making.

As to the merits of Israel's decision to reject the deal. The complete military defeat of Hamas is a practical impossibility. At best, you will get a hollow victory where something forms under a different name.

Netenyahu does list a more restricted goal:

the destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities

What you are left with is pure terrorism. No counterparty you can negotiate with. No internal counterbalance that cares about civilian concerns (aa week as those voices are already within Hamas). Just a loose knit enemy with no interrest other than violence, and no capacity to surrender.

Whats more, even in principle, Netenyahu's position is incompatible with any negotiation. A deal entered into with an organization that has no military or governmental abilities is worthless. Hamas would have no capability to enforce the deal.

The question is, what symbolism do people draw from this gesture. The symbolism I see is viewing the current conflict through the lense of 80 years ago. And, in my view, the pervasive of that 80 year old lense to this conflict is the central problem to solving it.

If Germany wants to pay symbolic reparations for the Holocaust, fine. But don't tie it to something that has nothing to do with the Holocaust.

What Judicial body? Every currently standing ruling regarding the merits of Trump's eligibility to be president under the 14th amendment have found that he is not eligible (although all are still in limbo pending the inevitable SCOTUS appeal). There is a colorable technical argument to be made that he is not excluded, but most of the legal community is not convinced by them.

The legal arguments about his eligibility to appear on the primary ballot are more nuanced, but seem kind of silly if he ultimately is inneligable to hold the office.

The states that have ruled that Trump can remain on the primary ballot all did so on some sort of procedural ground. Typically of the form "state law does not require a candidate to be elligable to hold office to appear on a primary ballot". In fairness to those states' lawmakers, what sort of braindead political party would try nominating someone who was inneligable to hold office?

Yes. The bill itself is here: https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2023/S3161

It defines sexual contact as an act between 2 people, then separately defines rape as engaging in such an act without the consent of the other person.

So, if a penis makes contact with a vagina, that is always vaginal sexual contact under this law. If someone engages in vaginal sexual contact without the consent of the other person, that is rape under this law; without reference which gender is the victim.

The specific wording is even less ambigous, because it says "he or she engages in vaginal sexual contact". As defined by this law, there is no way for a women to engage in vaginal sexual contact with anyone other than a man [0]. Note that for this provision, all that changed was a broadening from sexual intercourse. The gender neutrality of the rape definition had always been there.

This does mean that contact between a hand or toy and a genital is not any type of sexual contact (as defined by this law), but that oversight applies to both penises and vaginas, so is not a gendered decision.

The law also defines anal and oral sexual contact, and puts them everywhere it puts vaginal sexual contact

[0] Or at least, no way for a vagina owner to engage in it without a penis owner. Since the law doesn't really talk about gender, there was no need for special provisions to cover trans folk.

violates a district dress code that limits hair length for boys

I get the racism angle here, but isn't this an open and shut case of sexism?

Not just the court. The prosecutor's office as well. Their position is "we are ok with letting you go; as long as we can do it without admitting that we made a mistake".

And this is an institutional problem. The conviction happened 38 years ago. Everyone involved in prosecuting the case is gone. The office of the prosecutor is simply unable to admit that the office made a mistake.

Back when I was learning, I made a flashcard program. It had a class that was essentially a constant array, so you could call get(int i), and it would return an object describing both sides of the card.

How did I implement such a class you ask? First, I made a spreadsheet with 2 collumns to hold the data, with a third collumn of incrementing integers. Then, in the 4th column, I used string concatanation to right a java if statement that compared a variable against the index collumn; and if they match, return an object constructed from the 2 data columns.

Click and drag the 1 cell I wrote in the 4th collumn to replicate it in all the rows, then copy and paste the 4th collumn into notepad++.

I'd like to say I've moved past this; but my most successful projects have mostly been code generation ones; so really I've just moved past Excell.

Critism of US policy towards Israel has been a growing with the left for years. Now, a major change in the facts on the ground have made it a much more salient issue.

Around 2 years ago, I got an email from a products team asking me for urgent help extending a program in time to make a sale.

I looked over the program and wrote back sonething along the lines of "this program was written almost a decade ago by an unsupervisered highschool intern. Why TF are we still using it?".

Of course, I ended up helping them, because that highschool intern was me, and I ended up helping because no one else could figure out what highschool me was thinking.