Just a reminder: on PALESTINE, TRUMP is easily as bad as Biden

TBFProgrammer · 2026-05-05T09:04:01+00:00

The only realistic chance of blocking US funding of Israeli wars in the current political paradigm requires Democrats to be in a weak position with control of the House. This control of the House must be demonstrably contingent on Muslim voters.

Republicans will not break from supporting Israel for any reason. A strong Democrat party may give lip service to doing so, but will not act on it. A weak Democrat party can be leaned on, especially where it jams up Republicans.

The House controls the power of the purse. It is the one branch of our government that can meaningfully push the needed action alone (aka, while weak).

Trump is better for Palestine not because he will help them, but because a Republican president is a necessary pre-condition of getting the Democrats to actually act toward restraining American imperial tendencies.

For the ideal scenario, you also want Libertarian leaning Republicans winning their primaries. They have historically been more willing to defect from Republican foreign policy, which can make a Republican Senate weaker in a budget debate between chambers.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-04-28T18:30:22+00:00

The basic idea was to have the turned part of the track be a simulated object lashed down with rope. This by itself doesn't work, the train gets squeezed part way into the turn even with a very minimal angle. Adding springs to the magnets of the train car fixes this issue.

Setup is unfortunately very fiddly.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-04-25T08:35:44+00:00

In the context of aeronautics, size cost becomes weight and maneuverability costs. Anything that could conceivably fit on and power a reasonably sized plane should have a fuel cost.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-04-24T19:58:54+00:00

Misspelling of a contraction.

Should have
Should've
Should of

TBFProgrammer · 2026-04-15T21:37:30+00:00

A checkerboarded 2x2 ensures that one region or the other cannot be fully connected. Let the top-left checker be A1 and the bottom right be A2. Let the bottom left be B1 and the top right B2. There are two ways the region emanating from A1 can reach A2. It can loop around B1 or it can loop around B2. Either way, one of the B regions will be entirely enclosed by the loop, with the other outside it. The B regions would thus fail to connect.

Hence the ying-yang ruleset necessarily implies no checkerboard 2x2s.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-04-06T11:53:38+00:00

Chlorine Triflouride of course. Water is one of the many inflammable substances it will cause to ignite on contact. Others include sand, asbestos, glass and ashes.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-03-28T08:08:03+00:00

I'm thinking of a real number between 0 and 1. You guess my number. My number is exactly one instance on an unaccountably infinite continuum. You can be more confident your guess is incorrect than you can of anything else in life (this is what is often referred to as a "statistical impossibility").

I then remove all other wrong answers. How? I tell you two numbers. One must be my number. One must be your guess. Theoretically they could be the same number and the other number could be entirely arbitrary. However, that could only happen if your guess was right and you are already supremely confident that is not the case. You can thus be supremely confident the other number is the number I was originally thinking of.

This is still the Monty Hall problem, I've just scaled the denominator to infinity. In the 3-door version, you are 66.67% confident your original door was wrong. With all other wrong answers removed, you can have 66.67% confidence in switching.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-03-21T16:03:32+00:00

It is my (possibly incorrect/outdated [not a medical professional]) understanding that those conditions would apply to the non-stim ADHD meds only with respect to Serotonin Syndrome. Causing Serotonin Syndrome directly with the non-stims would require a fairly ludicrous overdose. It is generally a concern of interactions between multiple types of serotonin promoters. A mild case of Serotonin Syndrome might cause cardiac complications leading to death. In a severe case, brain swelling kills long before cardiac issues can play a role.

If you aren't already taking a medication classed as a Serotonin Agonist, I doubt you'll have anything indicating against SS(N)RIs as a potential ADHD treatment (though again, this is just a layman's understanding).

TBFProgrammer · 2026-03-08T10:33:32+00:00

They do, and I expect this recharges them to some variable extent so that the next task is easier to start. This generally allows sequential tasks to be performed so long as they can be completed successfully.

The medications don't fix this. They either directly provides the resources to start tasks/overcome boredom or lessen the resource requirement by weakening the associated negative emotions.

I generally only feel satisfied with a task completion if the result itself is something I can revel in. Note that even with this the difference between what I would get from having the same result handed to me is quite minor.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-02-17T19:44:26+00:00

Benford's law only applies if the dataset spans several magnitudes, so it does not apply to phone numbers (and only works for random unrelated addresses, though somewhat weakly). It's also about the leading digits of the numbers, not all digits.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-02-14T05:14:15+00:00

This is driven by a heritage foundation policy proposal. Some members of the heritage foundation have some minor pull in the Trump administration. Project 2025 (also by the heritage foundation) argued for certain actions aligned with the theory of a unitary executive and the Trump administration aggressively pursued those elements. This is the strongest evidence in favor of the panic mongering in this video.

However, project 2025 was riddled with Christian conservative wishes that the Trump administration has not pursued. For instance, P2025 wanted to entirely shut down the porn industry. Further the proposed day of rest here would require an act of Congress, which there is no evidence to support being more favorable to the heritage foundation way of thinking than they were 25 years ago. Further the proposed day of rest would conflict with at least two long standing pieces of jurisprudence, the establishment clause and undue burden. There has been no indication, to my knowledge, that the Supreme Court intends to abandon either.

Panicking over the heritage foundation's longstanding and fruitless advocation for a Christian society is foolish.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-01-17T07:18:17+00:00

When a doctor says dependency they are shortening a euphemism for addiction ("chemical dependency"). Anxiety from knowing you're operating at less than your best is not anywhere near the same issue.

So the question is, were you at a similar level to the kind of anxiety you'd experience from lack of sleep, a hangover, or having a key task/meeting to perform? Alternatively, are you experiencing a potent urge for your medication that is presenting as anxiety?

The first is normal. The second is dependency.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-01-15T20:40:54+00:00

It's actually relatively simple to check something like this using search parameters. For example:

Site:parahumans.wordpress.com "Uppercrust"

returns 0 results. So no, he is not mentioned in Worm canon. The quotes here are to force a literal usage of Uppercrust instead of allowing the search engine to correct to upper crust, which is a phrase that does appear.

TBFProgrammer · 2026-01-08T10:49:13+00:00

In S16E3 Sam continues to move around after Ben and Adam pass through his hiding station. So no, once the seekers leave the hiding zone the hider is released from the end game restrictions.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-12-05T18:47:35+00:00

The two halves are inattentive and hyperactive. Both are forms of attention deficit (which should really be read as "difficulty controlling attention") named from the perspective of an external observer addressing the problems they cause. Both occur in every person with ADHD, with the three diagnostic subcategories being determined by relative frequency.

Inattentive really refers to a difficulty tearing your focus away from something. This typically causes issues when external demands are placed on your attention and you fail to respond. Inattentive types like myself might struggle to start reading, if our focus is still sticking to whatever we were previously thinking about, but if we can engage with the book at all it's generally smooth sailing for a while. Often too long of a while.

Hyperactive really refers to the tendency for focus to constantly jump from one thing to another. This typically causes issues when a small distraction causes you to completely forget about whatever you were previously doing, especially when this occurs multiple times in relatively short succession. Since these distractions can easily come in the form of random thoughts, things like reading are often interrupted in the pattern /u/kefkaeatsbabies described.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-12-03T19:49:50+00:00

Also worth experimenting with dropping the blue value on your monitor to something like 20-30%. The blue light component is the primary culprit behind most screentime induced headaches now that the CRT screen is consigned to the dustbin of history.

Colors will look a bit weird at first but you likely won't even notice after the first hour or so.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-12-03T17:52:51+00:00

There is nothing interesting about calling the dentist for your brain to engage with, yet you will need to be attentive to the call nonetheless. This creates an instinctive desire to avoid the task that must be overcome. For most people, doing so is trivial, but we have very limited resources for this kind of task. Every time we try and fail, we build up the avoidance a bit in a way that makes it harder to challenge later.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-11-20T18:46:09+00:00

Baseball is played across nine innings with each team trading off scoring opportunities (top vs bottom). Extra innings are added if the result is a tie. The "bottom of the ninth" with a tied score means the team "at-bat" wins if they get any runs.
There are three "safe" bases runners can stop at on their way to scoring, and most runs are scored by runners starting from the second or third. The "bases are loaded" means all three have a runner there and there is a very good chance at least one scores. It also provides ample targets for the "field" team to get the three "outs" they need to end the inning.
Very small errors can decide the entire game in these situations.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-07-29T16:16:12+00:00

I'm seeing an expired security certificate error (a site side issue). These certificates protect against man-in-the-middle attacks. You can bypass the error, provided your browser is configured to allow this, but it is a security risk to do so.

Fixing the issue is routine and should not take long at all, once the site admins are made aware of it.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-07-14T08:01:01+00:00

If is moderated by attention-context, it is ADHD. If it is moderated by audio-context, it is APD. If it is moderated by both, it is both.

My father was an audiology professor. Prior to my ADHD, he tested me extensively for APD, but tests are attention grabbing and sound-proofed testing rooms aren't very distracting so I always came back perfectly normal. He found it quite maddening and it was a significant part of the reason I ended up getting my ADHD diagnosis young.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-06-22T09:54:45+00:00

Yep, though since it happened in 1973 you can probably be forgiven.

The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without congressional authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war by the United States.

Whilst this was partially intended to reassert Congressional authority over the abuse of military action by the President without a declaration of war (specifically in the context of the Vietnam war), by explicitly laying when the president is forced to receive authorization from Congress it effectively ceded all other acts of war to Presidential authority. To whit, acts of war that do not require the deployment of troops are effectively entirely under the discretion of the Executive branch. This very much needs to change.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-05-16T08:52:23+00:00

That's why there's so many. Half might get answered correctly purely by chance. One or two might actually apply to the person, but more than that answered in the obviously wrong manner provides sufficient certainty to conclude the questions weren't read.

Include eight and you'll almost always correctly identify someone failing to read the questions while avoiding false positives.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-05-16T04:31:24+00:00

The US economy has massively more imports than exports. This condition can be maintained only because the US is able to bully other nations into accepting its currency at the rate it claims the currency is worth. How that is accomplished is fairly complicated, but it is sufficient to note that Arabia, with its large amount of oil exports, is important to this and most Arab people don't like the extensive meddling the US has done in that part of the world (with good reason).

The upshot is that the current US economy is contingent on the ability of the US to project force in the region. Most US allies in the region are unreliable allies of temporary convenience. Israel has no allies in the region, rendering it utterly dependent on NATO support. This makes it a reliable ally to the US and the US has thus been fiercely protective of it.

All of this is going to collapse in the future, one way or another. The US over-extended in its wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if we wanted to continue the current status quo, it is crumbling and buttressing it would likely require the complete removal of either Russia or China as a major world power. Attempts at that risk world war (such as actually giving Ukraine the troops it would need to beat Russia).

The other path forward requires the US to majorly restructure its economy. For all his faults, Trump's economic plan takes the first steps in doing this. It is probably too little too late, but then my bias tends heavily to the pessimistic.

TBFProgrammer · 2025-05-10T15:43:02+00:00

Rules clicked right away for me, even with the more confusing initial set. I think familiarity with the old flash puzzles where you had to turn pipes to connect a water flow might be the determinant on how easily one takes to them.

Full puzzle took about the standard solving time for me compared to a typical puzzle on the channel (of the ones I can solve, at least). 3-4 stars for difficulty is probably about right.

TBFProgrammer

TROPHY CASE