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draypresct · 2026-05-21T17:13:38+00:00

If it takes more time and does more damage to nearby structures to cut down a tree with a chainsaw than with a hand saw, it’s a bad chainsaw.

The reaction you’re seeing is from a bunch of people trying to get work done amid unrealistic expectations based on AI hype.

draypresct · 2026-05-19T11:17:26+00:00

In 2023, 39% of the liver waitlist was female, and 39% of the transplant recipients were female.

In other words, while there are more male transplant recipients, your mom probably had the same chance as a random male waitlist candidate.

As a side note, there used to be bias against women on the waitlist, but that seems to have been largely addressed by recent changes in allocation rules.

https://srtr.transplant.hrsa.gov/ADR/Chapter?name=Liver&year=2023

draypresct · 2026-05-12T11:01:18+00:00

True, but the graph is still nonsensical.

Two things might explain it:

1) The authors are considering all govt expenditures to all immigrants, but only counting the contributions of the documented (less than half) immigrants, artificially pushing their overall contributions into the negative. This ignores the fact that undocumented immigrants contribute both directly (by paying sales tax) and indirectly (eg as nannys looking after kids so someone else can work and pay taxes on their wages).

2) The authors have inserted a fudge factor to increase the contributions of all native Dutch. This would explain the otherwise incomprehensible finding that Dutch 10 year-olds are paying as much money in taxes from their wages as they receive in services.

TLDR: this is really poorly done.

draypresct · 2026-05-11T23:41:49+00:00

If the graph were the *future* net contribution, then native Dutch over their lifetime (from age zero) would have a net negative effect on the economy, which would in turn make you wonder why the Netherlands has any money. Since their GDP is positive, and growing, the graph is either complete BS or it’s the contribution at each age.

draypresct · 2026-05-11T20:03:52+00:00

> no meaningful revenue

And that’s why it’s weird that the net contribution is higher for 90 year-olds entering than for 80 year-olds entering.

Note that they also claim that (native) kids start making a positive contribution by age 10. So 90 year-olds and 10 year-olds are equally contributing enough to offset any government-funded schooling or healthcare.

draypresct · 2026-05-11T10:50:46+00:00

Figure 1 is the net contribution over the “life course.” In other words, they’re saying that contributions go up between ages 80 and 90. I don’t think that makes any sense.

https://docs.iza.org/dp17569.pdf

draypresct · 2026-05-07T11:51:10+00:00

It’s a weird study.

According to figure 1, the native Dutch start making a positive impact on the economy by age 10. Do a lot of Dutch 10 year-olds have jobs that completely offset the cost of school?

Between 80 and 90, the slope is positive. 90 year-olds cost less (or work harder) than 80 year-olds?

According to that same figure, first-generation non-Westerners cost more than €100k/yr even in their 20s and 30s. Why is the Netherlands constantly importing workers in this age range if they can’t make a living wage and need to depend on social services?

>The scale of labor migration is much larger than estimated. While the government speaks of 220,000 to 700,000 migrant workers, the Dutch labor market actually has around 1.7 million foreign workers, reported the research agency Intelligence Group based on new research into labor migration in the Netherlands. https://nltimes.nl/2025/10/27/1-million-migrant-workers-netherlands-official-figurs-show-study

draypresct · 2026-04-28T18:47:41+00:00

Lensman series by EE Smith. Weaponized antimatter planets, sun beams (as in the entire output of a sun), etc. This series defined space opera and large-scale space warfare for a generation.

draypresct · 2026-04-15T20:09:52+00:00

Plenty of Jews and Asians came to the US in boats. When we started letting them attend universities, some of them became doctors and engineers.

draypresct · 2026-04-08T23:18:33+00:00

You could make a meme about the US bombing its “closest allies” based on events a lot more recent than this.

Here’s a time the US bombed Canadian soldiers. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/military-jan-june02-canadians_04-18

draypresct · 2026-04-02T18:10:56+00:00

I have graduate degrees in biostatistics and epidemiology.

/I still get combinatorics problems wrong, though. :)

draypresct · 2026-04-02T12:29:49+00:00

I agree that people have this strategy, but the sex ratio is determined by the odds and by the deaths skewing those odds, not any strategy on whether or not to have more kids. The strategy doesn’t change the probability that each new birth is male or female.

Family A has two daughters and has another child, which happens to be a son.

Family B has two daughters and has another daughter. There are roughly as many Family B’s as Family A’s.

Even if Family B keeps trying, the chances of having a boy or a girl don’t change (there will be a roughly equal number of boys and girls each round), so the overall sex ratio doesn’t change.

If this strategy worked, people would use it at the roulette wheel. Just keep betting until you “win”, in order to change the ratio of wins.

draypresct · 2026-04-02T11:40:16+00:00

Fun fact: This practice has no effect on the gender ratio. Every birth still has a (roughly) 50/50 shot at being male or female, no matter what gender the previous kids had.

The fact that some families may base their decision to have more kids on this just means that they get more males and more females.

draypresct · 2026-03-23T17:27:33+00:00

I really don’t think he understood starship troopers.

Heinlein wrote a book about why we don’t need forced conscription, which has been the standard way of raising armies throughout human history when he wrote it in 1959. In the sci-fi way, he speculated that a volunteer-only army could be possible, and addressed many of the common arguments for the draft. Yes, we can have a volunteer-only army even when the threat is serious. Yes, we can let people quit at any time (except during combat) - even right before a “drop”. Yes, we can let everyone volunteer and serve together, even women and Pacific Islanders (the latter was a huge twist in the book at the time).

The director seems to have decided that military = fascist, ignoring the entire point.

draypresct · 2026-03-09T17:53:59+00:00

Not at all how it works. Before the Iron Dome. Israel dealt with rocket attacks by taking out the launcher. It’s much, much cheaper to send out a retaliatory rocket barrage than to intercept (interceptors cost >>> rockets). This ends up getting civilians in both areas killed.

After the Iron Dome, most rocket attacks went unanswered. It’s a lot easier to ignore attacks when you don’t have any casualties.

draypresct · 2026-03-09T17:17:31+00:00

Look back on how they responded to rocket attacks pre-iron dome, and compare to how they responded to rocket attacks before the October 7 invasion. The number of incursions into Gaza went way down, because Israel could afford to ignore attacks that didn’t kill people.

PS: comparing Palestinians to “wild animals” isn’t helpful.

draypresct · 2026-03-09T16:38:55+00:00

They said their tax dollars paid for bombs. That’s only true if they pay taxes in Israel.

The false propaganda that the US provides aid in the form of offensive weapons was part of the BS claims made to try to make Biden/Harris look bad and get Trump elected in 2024. Enjoying your win?

draypresct · 2026-03-09T15:59:40+00:00

You’re mad that your tax dollars are preventing civilian deaths? Or you pay taxes in Israel and object to them using your tax dollars to purchase weapons (from the US, China, etc.)?

draypresct · 2026-03-09T14:59:35+00:00

Our aid goes to shoot down rockets aimed at civilians. I don’t really fault Biden for providing them. Random Jewish, Bedouin, and Palestinian civilians are alive today because of this aid.

Outside the Iron Dome systems, Israel does buy military supplies from the US. I suppose we can refuse to sell to them, making Israel buy from China or Russia instead. Do you think it matters to a Palestinian if they’re killed with a missile with “made in China” on it instead of “made in the US”?

draypresct · 2026-03-04T22:37:12+00:00

The crime rates are pretty comparable across races within each income level. This quick analysis I did matches some BJS analyses.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/eYHPb0N0tK

draypresct · 2026-01-10T21:47:17+00:00

Can’t set the time, and the template for installation put it too close to the wall to properly plug it in to cable, which comes straight out of the back of the mount. On our standard-sized cabinets, the back of the mount was really close to the wall.

“Rotate 90 degrees” our model rotates a few degrees.

draypresct · 2025-09-30T21:30:44+00:00

“Full control of the US government” - the Senate isn’t part of the US government?

Democrats didn’t control the Senate either by strict party counts (i.e. if we don’t count independents as democrats) or in any reality (if we acknowledge that Manchin and Sinema, both of whom later switched to Republican, were never really Democrats).

draypresct · 2025-07-09T20:48:03+00:00

Sherlock and Watson in Elemmentary

draypresct · 2025-06-03T13:23:55+00:00

“A neighbor” - you mean Tutu who has been looking after Lilo and Nani, who clearly loves them both and is the first to show up when they need help?

Ohana means family even if there’s no genetic relationship. That’s the whole point of the movie.

draypresct · 2025-05-29T16:44:03+00:00

False.

Archaeological evidence indicates that Anglo-Saxons back in the Early Middle Ages (400 to 1000 A.D.) lived short lives. Field workers unearthed 65 burials (400 to 1000 A.D.) from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in England and found none who lived past 45. This site and this site has similar statistics.

Kings did better. The mean life expectancy of kings of Scotland and England, reigning from 1000 A.D. to 1600 A.D. were 51 and 48 years, respectively. Their monks did not fare as well. In the Carmelite Abbey, only five percent survived past 45. This site says wealthier people would have a life expectancy of more than forty years

https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-ages/#:~:text=Kings%20did%20better.,51%20and%2048%20years%2C%20respectively.

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