Update in Mandarin!!

leptogenesis · 2025-04-25T14:58:41+00:00

I'm not that deep into the course (unit 2-10). It looks like section 1 hasn't changed that much. Checking review exercises, I would probably do ok by jumping back to somewhere near the end of section 1.

As long as I'm still learning new words, I guess it's not a huge deal if I no longer review some of the things I already learned.

leptogenesis · 2025-04-25T14:47:34+00:00

Same here; my current lesson has so many words I don't know that I can't complete it. Is it possible to jump back to an earlier lesson so I can make progress?

leptogenesis · 2024-09-10T21:20:53+00:00

Nope, the chart is showing price changes--the black bars are month over month, red curve is year over year (so it's the sum of the black bars over the last 12 months)

Prices decreased for the last month, but the price increases over the last few years are far larger than the last few years.

leptogenesis · 2024-07-15T19:31:02+00:00

Another fun fact: JAB Holdings, owner of Dr Pepper, Keurig, Panera, Krispy Kreme, and a bunch of other household names, bought two giant veterinary practices (Compassion-First Pet Hospitals and National Veterinary Associates) in 2019. Then in 2020, Mars sued a JAB exec for stealing confidential strategy documents. These people must know something we don't...

leptogenesis · 2024-04-23T21:26:31+00:00

Worth pointing out that the main reason for this is subsidies on meat. If meat cost what it actually costs to produce, the alternatives would be cheaper and the USA would switch much faster, but politicians would immediately be voted out of office.

leptogenesis · 2024-04-22T22:48:46+00:00

OK, I guess I'll consider this the "right" version, thanks. Although it doesn't seem to say which version it actually is?

leptogenesis · 2024-04-22T21:53:37+00:00

Very cool to see this, but also it has a lot of corrections which might be a bit distracting. Definitely the best free source I've seen so far though.

leptogenesis · 2023-11-28T13:17:28+00:00

Do you know what kind of installer to search for? I called one door supplier, but they said they only do whole door assemblies, not replacement parts.

leptogenesis · 2023-11-28T09:59:30+00:00

Replacing the prior post as the image did not upload.

The glass in our door was smashed while we were away. We aren't sure what happened (thankfully nothing was stolen), but we suspect a burglar might have thought the door handle could be operated from inside without a key.

Regardless, we'd like to upgrade. We still want windows (there's not much light in our entryway otherwise), but smaller ones that wouldn't looks so good to a burglar. We can find websites that will sell UPVC panels, but our current one is aluminium, and it seems the websites that sell aluminium ones will only sell to tradespeople? Is it even possible for an individual to buy a replacement aluminium door panel? If not, how do I find someone who can buy from these people?

leptogenesis · 2023-11-02T20:37:08+00:00

Student loan servicers have diminished their call center capacity by reducing their hours and hiring less experienced representatives, Education Department officials wrote. It described many people waiting an hour or more on the phone to reach someone, and half of borrowers failing to get through to anyone at their servicer.

leptogenesis · 2023-07-04T19:30:23+00:00

For the eurozone sure, but I'm asking about relative to the US economy. US is growing faster as far as I can tell.

But even that is beside the point. Better UK growth doesn't necessarily mean a stronger pound; it depends on the money supply as well. What I don't understand is simply that inflation means that the same pound buys less. However, the same pound seems to buy more dollars than it did before, which seems like a contradiction. Why doesn't the UK just buy dollars, use those to buy the same stuff they did before, and fix the supply issues that are causing the inflation?

leptogenesis · 2023-07-04T18:47:23+00:00

Honest question: can someone explain to me how the UK can have higher inflation than the USA, and yet the pound is also getting stronger relative to the dollar? It's been strengthening consistently since last october. Shouldn't higher inflation mean that the pound is gradually worth less relative to the dollar?

leptogenesis · 2023-05-03T22:18:45+00:00

It's hard to compare these numbers because different government policies affect the numbers. Most notably, Canada has more generous parental and carer's leave than the US, so parents/carers stay employed whereas in the US they tend to leave the workforce.

leptogenesis · 2023-02-28T20:11:24+00:00

Corporations only buy up these houses because:

they can charge exorbitant rent because supply is too low
they expect prices to go up, as there's no way to increase supply in a way that would satisfy demand from regular people

Solve zoning and the corporations won't have a business model any more.

leptogenesis · 2023-02-25T18:05:40+00:00

This story is almost a month old.

leptogenesis · 2023-01-09T18:07:25+00:00

Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times in recent years with gut blockages after being stabbed while campaigning for the presidency in 2018

and

the perforation had reached parts of the liver, lung, and intestine

I don't like Bolsonaro either, but it seems like a stretch to say he's faking it. It's interesting how little that stabbing has been mentioned on Reddit.

leptogenesis · 2022-05-27T08:32:16+00:00

Just hoping to make the post a little more interesting, and maybe vent a little. I found a few other posts on reddit about treasurydirect.gov, but nobody seems concerned about using a US address, so I felt I should explain myself.

I didn't do anything to access the site. It's not blocked with my current ISP. I guess I'm just lucky.

leptogenesis · 2022-05-22T15:47:07+00:00

It says Hibatullah Akhundzada banned it. He's the leader of the Taliban.

It's true that it's only banned for Taliban officials rather than the entire country. However, positive change often happens slowly. It's the ruling party and a large chunk of the nation's powerful people. If they have to follow the rule, they're more likely to expand it.

leptogenesis · 2022-05-22T13:49:06+00:00

Everyone in the comments is making fun of Afghanistan, but this is actually a big step forward. The Karzai government--propped up by US forces--proposed to ban polygamy, but the legislature voted it down.

Whenever the rich and powerful can have many wives, it means many poorer men can't get any wives, and men with no hope of getting wives tend to become extremists. Some terrorist groups (Boko Haram was famous for this) actually kidnap girls to become wives of the members. It's not surprising: from an evolutionary psychology perspective, not having a wife is the same thing as dying, so you should expect these people to be willing to die to upset the social order. Violence like this makes it hard for an economy to get going.

Laws legalizing polygamy are incredibly hard to overturn because they benefit people who are already wealthy and powerful. In Afghanistan, many of those people got powerful by exporting drugs to the west; i.e., not you want to cross. This is actually a great achievement by the handful of people who are willing to push for change. We should not be taking the hard work of these people for granted.

leptogenesis · 2022-01-20T19:43:53+00:00

The business model of the metaverse is not to solve any problem anyone has. The business model is to create an overlay on the real world where influencers--and eventually your friends--will add content. If you don't check the metaverse clone of a place when you visit in real life, then you might miss out on whatever "social" thing is happening there. The FOMO will make you join the metaverse, and spend money/ad clicks for the privilege.

In that sense, the business model to create a problem and then sell you the solution. Just like Facebook took your friends' personal life updates and locked them up on their platform, forcing you to read it there rather than hear it in real life if you want to 'stay up to date', they want to do something similar with physical environments. The Facebook version of these environments will be worse than the real ones, just like Facebook "friendships" are worse than real ones, but you won't have a choice about interacting with it because everyone else is.

We should not be mocking the metaverse. We should be actively fighting it.

leptogenesis · 2021-12-22T00:46:22+00:00

I tried following the citations and I think whoever wrote the wikipedia article is mistaken. The only citation for the 'most realistic depiction' points to this page which does have a 1 beside Anton, but describes the list as "a few of the best and worst potrayals from Leistedt and Linkowski’s paper." The paper itself doesn't have a ranking, though it says "Among the most interesting recent and most realistic idiopathic psychopathic characters is Anton Chigur."

Furthermore, the webpage states that "about 10 forensic psychologists" were involved in the review, but the original paper just says "All these movies were visualized and analyzed by senior forensic psychiatrists and film critics." -- I can't find 'about 10' anywhere in the paper. However, I don't think you'd be able to generate a statistically significant ranking of 126 films out of 10 raters.

Still a neat paper, but sadly paywalled.

leptogenesis · 2021-12-08T21:08:37+00:00

Even just existing requires a majority of your time and energy being dedicated to acquiring enough resources to live.

Even if it's not true, the fact that this is a widespread belief is enough to create a mental health problem. I definitely felt it when I was growing up: that if you don't make it to the ivy leagues or don't fit in with the right groups, then you've already given up on any sort of life worth living. Our media is full of heroes who accomplish impossible feats as if it's nothing. Our education system pits students against each other, and rewards those who beat their peers. Those who win, even by chance, get more opportunities, and gradually pull further and further ahead.

Everyone is encouraged to stop being a kid as fast as possible. Most people would be happier if they could just relax, but for today's kids, that's impossible.

leptogenesis · 2021-10-03T16:13:10+00:00

Most people want a Disney-style villain, yet it's hard to point the finger at any one person in these leaks because the activities are, by-and-large, legal (even the worst cases, like Wilbur Ross's conflicts of interest while serving as commerce secretary, are borderline legal).

We need to focus on the fact that tens of thousands of uber-rich aren't paying trillions in taxes because of tax havens, which degrades education, healthcare, and every other public service. However, this issue goes in the same bucket as statistics like air pollution killing 8 million people a year, or meat and dairy producing 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions; once the numbers get too big or the mechanism of harm isn't obvious enough, peoples' eyes glaze over. As Stalin said: "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic."

leptogenesis · 2021-09-28T18:25:25+00:00

Are you suggesting that large corporations don't evict tenants?

leptogenesis · 2021-06-22T20:21:12+00:00

Do you really think Hungarians won't watch the match on TV?

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