195400+ entries in 0.046s
mircea_popescu: obviously cheapest that can be had today is worse than most expensive that could be had 30 years ago.
mircea_popescu: it went nowhere. but i guess if the govt gets involved it'll be a great success.
mircea_popescu: <punkman> seems pretty hopeless << actually some derpy "artists" were airing this nonsensical scheme a few years ago. it basically reduces to "isn't it unfair that only some 6/7 chicks get to pretend like they're artists on daddy's dime ? why shouldn't i have a daddy like that!"
mircea_popescu: <punkman> oh wow ebay now has chinese 420-800mm lens for 50 bucks << aha. and for all the pretense of the swiss from 20 years ago, 2015 800mm chinese lens beats 1985 zeiss lens.
mircea_popescu: cheaper than any initiative to retain athletes they could come up with
mircea_popescu: sane uni admin would just hire a few dozen models to walk around the campus nude all day.
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo i guarantee you 90% of campus drone usage is to take shower pic of the 3 not-obese females per campus.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform as part of the perennial hate of ru in ro, "Shura-Bura" is how you say "utter nonsense"
mircea_popescu: i forgot this world exists where "download" = "here's a binary"
mircea_popescu: "AutoHotkey (AHK) is a free, open-source macro-creation and automation software for Windows that allows users to automate repetitive tasks."
mircea_popescu: "AutoHotkey: macro and automation Windows scripting language" ?
mircea_popescu: "who could ever conceivably want microsecond delays!!11"
mircea_popescu: it arbitrarily decided to round all delays to the integer second.
mircea_popescu: in "random news from stupid island" : xmacro is pretty much the only workable linux keyboard/mouse emulator.
mircea_popescu: "despite the objections from Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia." << romania ignored the soviets throughout, decided to make its own. they... sucked.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: asciilifeform incidentally it occurs to me - one theory that'd very well fit the soviet ibm insanity would be, "the captive thief". ie, a guy so enamoured with the idea that "this calculator is hot (ie, stolen)" that he'll gladly expend $1500 to get a shitty pocket calculator, instead of $1100 to get a 10x as powerful desktop.
mircea_popescu: i guess that's what half the country tis doing anyway so...myeahk
mircea_popescu: in that sense might as well just endorse your paycheck to obama and forgetdaboutit
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo makes 0 sense to me, seeing how you already paid tax on it, but then again i don;t live there
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform putin's fighting hard with himself to stay away the harvoscow.
mircea_popescu would have enjoyed working with stalin on soviet computing
mircea_popescu: "Mastering the operating system of the IBM-360 will require 2200 man-years and 700 workers. "
☟︎ mircea_popescu: <asciilifeform> and just about everybody, right, left, center, happily buying in. << i'm buying in because i do not believe local resistence is a good idea. the whole thing should burn, and pockets of sanity just make the burn last longer and hurt more.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: <asciilifeform> orlov fellates the boston harvaprinceyaleton liberast-wing-usg orthodoxy <<< and moscow does not ? puhleaze.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: <asciilifeform> then he deleted the whole thing. << the truly damning part.
mircea_popescu: a tiny group of second rate twerps THAT KNOW they're second rate band together, and because the world is so sick on this "everyone's equal" jizz, they can't be repressed effectually.
mircea_popescu: <pete_dushenski> "Contrary to the myth that 97% of climate scientists believe we are headed toward a man-made climate doom, the truth is that a very small group of second rate climate scientists have captured the attention of some prominent political and media figures. " <<< this is how "gamergate" happened too, and everthing else. "race relations", "gender issues", you name it.
mircea_popescu: "progress" means, smaller contingents of anything useful as time goes by.
mircea_popescu: think in terms of "talented soccer players" or anything else, it's the exact same story.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform not replenishable because the natural rate of decay through aging is negative. ie, su shittifies like everything. if in 2000 it could produce 0.0001% of population, in 2020 it can produce only 0.0000965%. as population itself declines, the natural size of the thing shrinks. 10k in 2000, 9972 in 2001 etc.
mircea_popescu: they got 5-10k elite, and they're playing heroes of might and magic with them around the map. because even one lost is a horribru disaster. not replenishable.
mircea_popescu: they got a good plane, which keeps the us in check. but infantry wise...
mircea_popescu: meanwhile it's more like "we've been using temporary shelter in a permanent manner for the past decade and why is this insulation falling off"
mircea_popescu: the poor usg how it only wanted to restore peace and democracy to those poor iraquians, beleaguered by corrupt officials and tyrannycal despotism as they were, and then this capitalist concern of evil capital came and abused the entire good will of the people of usia and their elected representatives.
mircea_popescu: !v assbot:mircea_popescu.rate.VariaVarietatis.1:f7aa6b3fcbc2ebb3075b180556394cded6a0dfe953805ad91bd3adaad4b9156a
mircea_popescu: (in kbr's case, it's not that they're stupid, it's that they were raped. the classic "we provide indemnity so now you may not not break the law as we tell you to" trick. "key is in your pocket" in legal parlance)
☟︎ mircea_popescu: tis the truth. i personally wouldn't work with a rogue entity even if it promises "rly for srs" to cover my legal costs.
mircea_popescu: but otherwise, who the fuck do you think will ever work for them without indemnity ?
mircea_popescu: obv govt will try to wiggle out of its own promises, being the government of the united states that's at issue here.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform on your node and each and every other node i know of.
mircea_popescu: and no stack's not fucking germane. he was trying to insulate HIS INCOME. i was discussing optimizing YOUR EXPENDITURE. not like items.
☟︎☟︎ mircea_popescu: i have a mile of logs showing the behaviour without exception.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: because maximally, we accidentally found a magic packet.
mircea_popescu: trinque the fed mostly owns privately issued paper anyway. mostly bond bundles, but most of them are tied to stocks (via banks) so in point of fact the fed owns atm ~118-122% or so of the entire us economy
☟︎ mircea_popescu: trinque note that, importantly, you also need a particular sort of helpless population. the afghani have been bombed pretty much constantly since the 70s, did nothing.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: not because "britain would have bene destroyed" per se.)
mircea_popescu: (this is also why the agreement wass in england that if hitler had in fact the resources and the will to continue bombing for six weeks he'd have won the war with britain.
mircea_popescu: so no, microbes can not be used as substitute for your original " usg will happily carpetbomb own subjects if it needs to." specifically because that one chief ingredient is missing.
mircea_popescu: when you beat a slave, it is educative because she knows that this is strictly reality, and the only way out is internalised change.
mircea_popescu: he'll fantasize about being made whole, all that nonsense.
mircea_popescu: if you go kloink some dude on the street upside the head, he'll just think himself mistreated, go look for places to complain - the police station, the church, wherever.
mircea_popescu: i think i said it before, but anyway : the important thing about a beating isn't the actual beating, but the part that forces the recipient to internalise he has no recourse.
mircea_popescu: the important point about bombs is not the destruction. it's that they are loud and enforce in the recipient a taste of his own powerlessness.