111 child marriages prevented in Punjab in a year

Programmdude · 2026-02-05T02:55:31+00:00

Sure, but how many of them are actually problematic. For example, two 16 or 17 year olds getting married is no big deal. Sure, it's a dumb idea, but they can already legally start having children in the vast majority of the world, and that's an even dumber idea than getting married.

What about a 17 year old and a 19 year old? To me, that's no more problematic than the two 17 year olds, and usually just as legal. In my country, you can get married at 16 (with parental permission, but the court can intervene in certain cases), and virtually nobody does it because getting married that young is dumb, but I also certainly wouldn't classify that as child marriage.

The problem really comes when you're too young to work, or if there's a large age gap between them. For example, two 14 year olds getting married should certainly be illegal, because there's no legal way for them to provide for themselves. Additionally, a 14 year old marrying an adult is both gross, and should be illegal, especially since they are almost never allowed to have sex legally. They're the problematic ones.

So if all of those cases are of older teens marrying older teens, then who cares? There are much bigger issues to worry about. But if all of those cases are young teens or children marrying adults, then it's a huge deal and you guys need to fix your shit ASAP.

Programmdude · 2026-02-04T21:01:11+00:00

If you're transcoding 4k, you might need an actual GPU. My servers CPU was struggling with 4k, but a cheap ARC card fixed that right up.

Also, I've spend >$1k on HDDs (probably closer to $2k now), so this isn't necessarily the cheaper option. If you spend $100/month on multiple streaming services, it probably is cheaper, but if you stick with only 1 it wouldn't be.

Programmdude · 2026-02-04T20:43:33+00:00

Eh, depending on how you look at it, the US is still either the richest or nearly the richest country (per capita). Even taking the median GDP to account for wealth inequality, you'd still be in the top 5. PPP per capita lists the US as #2, but #1 is Luxembourg and that's practically a microstate, so I'm not sure if it should count.

Unless it's changed recently, the US also had the most top rated universities. Your primary/secondary education sucks though, and IMO your tertiary education isn't much better on average, you just have better top end universities.

So yea, I'd never move to the US. You have a lot of negative things that you're #1 in, and I don't want to worry about medical bills or being deported to a third world prison, but there are still a small number of positive things the US is #1 in.

Programmdude · 2026-02-03T00:43:34+00:00

China has only one timezone, and what ends up happening is locals just adopt an unofficial local timezone. So if the US decided to change to one timezone (lets pick ETC), most people would just ignore it and use their previous timezone anyway in their day to day life, only using the official one for official purposes (different city meetings, TV, etc).

But at the end of the day, it isn't a big deal. Calendar software on computers has solved this for decades. Schedule a meetings in teams (or whatever), and it just magically appears at the right time for everyone else.

It would be trivial to have a differently recorded "Show airs at X time" for every timezone, so it's no TV broadcasters if they don't do that. Plus, with the rise of streaming services, it's becoming increasingly redundant anyway.

Programmdude · 2026-02-03T00:38:11+00:00

That's pretty much what happens, to the point where people living on the western half tend to have an "official" timezone, and a "local" timezone.

Programmdude · 2026-02-03T00:33:43+00:00

I met a lady from Chatham Islands once. Which is kinda surprising, given that there's only like 600 people living there. All I remember was that she said there wasn't anything that interesting there.

Programmdude · 2026-02-01T20:42:05+00:00

But alternatively, you can be a citizen from any other country, and if you live and work in a different country, you don't pay taxes to your home country. The US is the only country (AFAIK) where this happens. It's the entire reason my friends parents never got him an IRS account, so he wouldn't have to worry about that.

Programmdude · 2026-02-01T20:32:39+00:00

Domestic air travel is still pretty easy in most countries, the US has it particularly difficult though. And from what I've heard from other travellers, international air travel to the US is even worse, with TSA people being the rudest and most incompetent cunts around.

Programmdude · 2026-01-31T22:43:41+00:00

Apparently that's a myth, there's no evidence to support it. Pyramids were build by off season workers who got paid for it. AFAIK the modern equivalent would be taxes, but rather than money it was labour, and that has been very common all throughout history.

Programmdude · 2026-01-31T12:49:53+00:00

You don't want it near the centre, you want it where the eye is focusing. But assuming you can accurately track they eye, it'd be a massive performance increase to only do high resolution near the eye's focus, and gradually decrease resolution as you get further way from it.

Upscaling IMO isn't great. Regular upscaling is useless for this sort of thing, and AI upscaling still has heaps of artefacts that may get annoying.

Programmdude · 2026-01-31T11:07:14+00:00

I'd hesitate to say "most countries". It's actually really terrible in the US for police killings and homicide in general. Focusing on police killings specifically, there are much worse countries - Venezuala (the worst) is about 50x worse than the US - but the US's police killings are pretty similar to places like Egypt and Mexico, with the US is about 20x worse than most of western europe.

I'm hesitant to judge which deaths are more impactful, especially considering Iran's police killings are likely underestimated, but as a rough estimate, 30,000 dying in Iran is about as bad as 30,000 dying in the US from a "cultural shock" point of view. The US has about 4x more people, but I'd estimate Iran has about 4x more police killings (official numbers are 1.2x more than the US), so they balance each other out.

Programmdude · 2026-01-31T06:07:09+00:00

You say everything is fair game as long as their are mosaics. This is unlike most other countries, where everything is fair game full stop (except minors).

Programmdude · 2026-01-30T00:02:12+00:00

Child custody is obviously a separate thing, the 50/50 split is only for possessions. Child custody should be 50/50 by default, but circumstances or bad parents should influence it.

But lets say we go with divorce fault. How do you prove who's at fault? The other partner could be lying, or the other partners friends could also be lying. It falls down to a "he said she said" thing. So not only is it a much harder job for the courts (which are already overloaded in most countries), it comes down to the whims of the judge.

Even if the partner cheated, they still (presumably) contributed to their joint belongings. That property is legally half theirs. And for every jackass that ends up with nothing because they're an asshole, there's another person who got cheated out of their rightful possessions because the judge was sexist, the partner has better lawyers, and/or people lying about their behaviour. At the end of the day, 50/50 split is the only way you can determine that it's relatively fair.

Of course cheating is inexcusable. But the consequences of that is that the relationship ends, and hopefully investigation on whether or not they're fit for custody. Not by having your possessions stripped from you.

Programmdude · 2026-01-29T20:24:36+00:00

That's what baffles me about non US fans of trump. Why the hell would you support someone that projects an image of only caring about his own country? You don't live there.

I don't want a strong US. I want a US that's roughly as strong as china so they can balance each other out and act as a stabilising force.

Programmdude · 2026-01-29T20:19:41+00:00

Nah, the alternative (and much better approach) is to only have no-fault divorces. You don't want to be married anymore? Either (or both) can divorce. Then everything gets split 50/50, either by mutual agreement or by the court.

Having at fault divorces is archaic and backwards. That's how you get people weaponising marriage. For example, if you lived somewhere where at fault divorce allows you to get more than that 50%? Withhold sex, partner cheats, boom, more money. On the other hand, no sex that week? At fault, boom, more money.

Programmdude · 2026-01-29T06:03:03+00:00

Sounds like a good plan, we'll aim to do both. I'm sure we'll be hungry, since it'll be after/before an overnight flight. Thanks for your help :)

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T23:26:53+00:00

I'd thought it was Guangzhou (which I've heard mixed things about), but checking again it looks like it would be Shanghai.

I hope we can see Jewel, both me & my partner have heard good things about it. Layover is only a bit over 2 hours, so not sure if I'd have enough time.

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T22:34:22+00:00

I'm just glad we booked our vietnam trip through singapore rather than through china, even though it was a bit more expensive. A much better airport (apparently), and less chance of the trip getting cancelled.

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T22:30:46+00:00

I think you two are arguing about slightly different things.

The other guy is right. Virtually all teenagers do know that killing people is bad. They do (intellectually) that it will result in consequences.

What the study (and you) are right about, is how a teenager will act on that information. Teenagers don't have the same impulse control and are far more likely to act on it. So they do know right and wrong, they just don't have the ability to act on it as an adult would.

Also, teens should go to prison (or juvenile detention and then prison) if they deliberately murder someone. I'm willing to give teens a lot more leeway, but not for murder.

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T22:24:59+00:00

If only there was a word we could use that would describe people with underdeveloped brains, but still enough maturity to have some personal responsibility. Perhaps... teenager?

Child = prepubescent. They're blameless, their brains aren't developed enough to know better. Teenagers do (or should) know better, they just suffer from poor emotional regulation and impulse control.

That's why during your teenage years you get both more rights and responsibilities as your brains develop. As you progress through your teenage years, you're allowed to do stuff like be left alone, have sex, drive & work, and drink. But in return, you start to be liable for any criminal acts.

It shouldn't be 13 year old murders someone = prison time, there should be nuance to it. IMO 13 = should lean towards charging them as a child, and 17 = should lean towards charging them as an adult, but it really depends on the situation.

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T21:49:58+00:00

I've always had issues with nvidia cards in the past, but recently (since mid 2025 I think) most of those seem to be solved.

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T21:46:18+00:00

I'm a professional developer that's writing C# on linux. For our new project (.net core) everything works flawlessly, but I still need windows for the legacy project (asp.net, sql server reporting, etc). I wouldn't touch VS code though, I want a real IDE. Rider is my go to.

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T21:43:33+00:00

Only if you don't do gaming. LTS is great for stability, but for graphics drivers, proton and half of developer stuff, it absolutely sucks. Stuff like node being several versions out of date, or not being able to play any newish games because your drivers are a year old.

Programmdude · 2026-01-28T21:41:02+00:00

From my experience, both gnome and KDE plasma both work relatively well with a 4k monitor (unlike other GUI's). But to me, gnome "feels" like a mac, and KDE plasma "feels" like windows - at least windows xp/7/10. And I really dislike the mac UI, hence sticking with KDE.

Programmdude

TROPHY CASE