204300+ entries in 0.119s
mircea_popescu: i have nfi wtf scam
this is, but it makes entirely no sense whatsoever.
mircea_popescu: amusingly, it is way
the fuck cheaper
to overweight flights
than
to fedex. by a factor of like, 2.
a111: Logged on 2016-09-08 15:47 asciilifeform: a c-grinder will also, should its lid come off, happily continue
to fly (yes) around
the kitchen, grinding whatever ends up in its path, drywall, chairs, people, van goghs, stradivaris, crates of ammunition, dogs, dildos.
mircea_popescu: but aside from a whole crate with like 50 pogos in
their original packaging, i carried over
two granite mortar&pestle arrangements. because fu, i gotta have my pie spices hand ground.
phf imagines carefully packed pogos in one of
those old
travel
trunks, numbered "trunk #49: pogos" next
to "trunk #50: hats"
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform i didn't perjure you,
they didn't get sold or left in argentina, so. all good.
mircea_popescu: i don't give a shit about any excuses.
this is
the first, and
the most important criterion of any place. no airport coolies, not civilised.
mircea_popescu: btw -- here's a new mp rule : if
the airport you land at does not have porters waiting at
the ready, you have landed in
the
third world.
mircea_popescu: though i did give a fiddy
to
the porter who handled all of it, dude earned it. also made his day quite evidently.
mircea_popescu: ftr, mp put > 200kgs worth of mostly electronica
through customes at $mystery-location.
took all of 5 minutes and $0 in fees.
mircea_popescu: yeah i guess. sucks
to live in a shitty jurisdiction huh.
Framedragger: (i also called
them
to inquire but
teh law is
that
they can't
tell me more
than on a postcard (which gives amount
to pay, basically, i mean for srs). i may have gleaned something more by showing up at relevant delivery office (not
the closest one) but i didn't bother (paid online and got it posted
to my door))
phf: only
thing
they shipping usa -> wherever is drugs. so it's a pretty safe bet
to investigate
Framedragger: i can post it later but need
to finish a
thing
tonight
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform why bother ? not like it's insured, what's
the upside.
Framedragger: the only form
they gave me was basically a fucking postcard saying "you gotta pay us if you want it"
Framedragger: minimum import duty amount ~£8, *but*
there is a
tax for
the
tax (not kiddin) - administrative fee - which is also £8, so £16 in
total for import (lololol)
mircea_popescu: if you find it within yoruself
to post forms you were issued
that'd be grand.
☟︎ Framedragger: it *could* be
that it's because asciilifeform nicely noted down a dollar value on
the parcel but
then if he didn't he'd
technically be breaking some law or another i'm sure
mircea_popescu: Framedragger how much did you end up paying per unit, and under what
title was it extracted ?
Framedragger: re. FUCKGOATS customs hold-up in UK: according
to
their story
the hold-up with uk customs was due
to
them having
to apply import duty (had
to pay a bit) from u.s., *even
though* i've had plenty of shit sent in from u.s. of a. before, so who knows (they wouldn't
tell me more) :D
☟︎☟︎ mircea_popescu: which is why
the "exotic" nationalist party, abe & co, keep pushing for army.
mircea_popescu: japan is actually finding itself in a very great conjuncture, reminiscent of early 1900s. both russia and china need it.
the usg... who cares.
phf: i vaguely suspect japan is actively shedding u.s. assets, so all
these "investigations" might be u.s. attempt
to extract whatever
they can still extract
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform
the japs are
trying
to insulate it from
the loss, it may survive in parts.
mircea_popescu: kinda why i didn't like it. made all
these bs lower market
tvs.
phf: pretty sure my first vhs was
toshiba
mircea_popescu: if usg asks for an apple, you bid a dollar, and nobody underbids you,
they'll decide
they must "inspect"
to "investigate" etcetera, and won't you agree
to a
three dollar fine ?
mircea_popescu: if usg asks for an apple and you bid a dollar and
then
they decide
to define "apple" as a sack of potatoes, you owe
two dollars in merchandise.
mircea_popescu: the scam is very fuinny in particular because usg-run
toshiba subsidiary westinghouse negotiated "fixed price" contracts with local baronies ;
they happen
to understate actual cost by at least 60%. unsurprisingly,
the "undue enrichment" concepts were
temporarily suspended. had it gone
the other way, and
toshiba managed
to make off with 250% what it was owed, it'd be all "Corruption scandal" and whatnot, of course.
mircea_popescu: aha. just making a modest stab at chronicling
the process
mircea_popescu: (basically, long story short, usg financed a coupla units in georgia and ncarolina with japan's money, ain't giving it back. loss is whatever you want it
to be, 3
to 10 bn)
☟︎ mircea_popescu: asciilifeform
the problem being
that
they can't reproduce it.
mircea_popescu: in other news,
toshiba seems headed for
the ex-bin. after
the "we made up 7bn profits over
the past 6 years and are really losing 5bn a year atm" 2016 lulz,
they've announced a 3.5bn looting by
the usg
this year.
phf: i met fare at one of international lisp conference's and i
thought he was kind of off, but
the kind of work he did on asdf3 precisely corresponds
to his personal and writing styles. sort of like a dirty kid
that you have
to constantly remind
to like fucking go wash yourself dude, omg
☟︎ mircea_popescu: it's somewhat funny, in
the side pocket, how paul graham's idle verbiage about "the power of
tech entrepreneurs
to reinvest and create wealth" ENTIRELY ignores how without exceptrion his chosen field consists of mark cubans, ie dorks who made away with a large pile of corporate loot in a very madoffian manner and
then just kept piddling it away.
mircea_popescu: made a bunch of money out of consumer plastication of computing, went on
to "be entrepreneur"
mircea_popescu: i
thought
that guy with
the failed lcd restaurant would have been.
mircea_popescu: chiefly because it never fails
to come
to something like
this.
mircea_popescu: i know plenty of 15yos who could recite factoids about fast cars i would nevertheless not permit
to drive my fast car.
mircea_popescu: there's a very strict difference between
technical competence and
trustworthyness.
phf: i don't
think fare was ever sane, but he at some point existed in similar space
to asciilifeform, so people would mix
the
two
together. i don't
think anything he ever wrote was as lucid as "seven laws of sane computing", but a lot of highly abstract verbiage on imaginary systems designs
mircea_popescu: also why
the fuck won't bernstein SIGN random
text snippers.
mircea_popescu: i'm sorry,
twitter is not a platform. anyone can say whatever
the fuyck
they want 140 chars at a
time and i'll ignore it just like i ignore smsn
mircea_popescu: i'm supposed
to give a shit what
tweets some dood
tweeted ?
mircea_popescu: dude who
the fuck cares what fare says/does, his head is more broken
than anything you'd drag out of a colombian by
the hour hotel.
mircea_popescu: any evolution whatsoever means i don't want
to
touch
that item.
mircea_popescu: omfg
this is
the dumbest
thing i read all week! and i read beginner's essays penned by 20yo sluts!!
mircea_popescu: hat
tend
to not evolve much "above", and not at all "below"
their base abstractions).
mircea_popescu: PS: Here are ways
that Racket is indeed vastly superior
to CL,
that make me believe it's
the future of Lisp: First and foremost, Racket keeps evolving, and not just "above"
the base language, but importantly *below*.
This alone makes it vastly superior
to CL (that has evolved
tremendously "above" its base abstractions, but hasn't evolved "below", except for FFI purpose, in
the last 20 years), and superior
to most languages (t
mircea_popescu: it doesn't fall in not because hull, like boat, but because mutual reinforcement. which is imo
the idea of "maintain world" for us
too. clearly
tmsr world will be bigger
than usg/whatever world. if it is also sufficiently rigid, gravity or seaworthyness are no longer considerations : it can't fall in because of itself not leaving room
to.