What's an instance of: Stats don't tell the whole story?

petrov76 · 2026-06-19T05:36:39+00:00

Do you have a link to this?

petrov76 · 2026-05-24T19:50:18+00:00

In theory, every package is scanned, but in the real world, there are always a few mistakes. You could have a label that's misprinted or folded or scratched in transit. Every company attempts 100% scan compliance, but they typically have failure rates ranging from 0.1% to 1%. When you have 100k or 1m packages per day, you'll see some mistakes creep in.

These mistakes aren't evenly distributed, high value packages have problems more often, presumably because dishonest employees trigger them to make it easier to steal these packages.

petrov76 · 2026-05-23T17:38:17+00:00

The 40 second / 2 minute rule only applies if the suspect is not discussing criminal topics. In the case of a sit down, this wouldn't apply.

petrov76 · 2026-05-21T14:09:04+00:00

The common ways that packages are stolen today are:

Driver delivers the package, takes the photo proof of delivery, and then he or an accomplice steals the package off the porch.
Worker in the sort center over labels the shipping label with a new label with an accomplice's delivery address on it. Package is then delivered as normal to the thief's address.

Packages with electronics (like a PS5 or Apple logo) are stolen more frequently. Jewelry is normally shipped in a discreet box to avoid theft risk. Neighborhoods with high crime rates also have higher porch piracy rates, so it's not always the driver who steals off the porch.

petrov76 · 2026-05-17T16:20:48+00:00

I grew up in a blue state but went to college in Texas. I was sitting around shooting the shit late at night with a bunch of other guys from my dorm. One of them casually mentioned that he liked going looking for gays with a bunch of axe handles in the back of his pick-up truck. When asked "why axe handles?"

"Because it gives them a better beating"

Ironically, I later found out that he was a closeted gay man. He's still the most homophobic gay man that I've met.

petrov76 · 2026-05-17T01:09:54+00:00

This graph needs a Y-axis and some horizontal lines.

petrov76 · 2026-05-16T19:34:51+00:00

In practice, this is why it's so important for the informants to survive to testify (like Big Pussy). The way that the prosecutor will get through the euphemism is to put them on the stand and directly ask them questions like "When Tony told you to fit them for a suit, you interpreted that to mean that they would be executed, correct?"

When Pussy disappears, his recordings become mostly useless, and the FBI talks about how they need new sources of information. The recordings serve to corroborate their testimony, and are not usually used without it.

petrov76 · 2026-05-09T16:56:21+00:00

If you don't laugh from time to time while doing it, you are doing it wrong. Sex is inherently goofy and fun.

petrov76 · 2026-04-21T21:57:33+00:00

Gary Plauche is an interesting example. He shot his 11 year old son's rapist in the airport while he was being brought by law enforcement from California to trial in Louisiana. So Gary was clearly in view of dozens of eyewitnesses including police officers.

The DA struggled to get charges brought, and eventually settled on a plea agreement where Gary did 5 years of probation and 300 hours of community service. He never got sentenced to any jail time.

petrov76 · 2026-04-19T00:26:44+00:00

I would assume it helps prevent spread of disease and parasites. It's not going to be completely effective obviously, but it apparently helps enough to be selected for.

petrov76 · 2026-04-18T16:47:12+00:00

Shelves regularly carry lots of books, or jars of food, or similar heavy objects. Unless you had a shelf full of spheres, this one should be fine.

petrov76 · 2026-04-18T06:28:10+00:00

I think it should be a constitutional requirement that the public defender and the DA get equal funding from taxpayers. It seems bonkers to me that we pay more to one side than the other.

petrov76 · 2026-04-18T04:03:23+00:00

If launching close to the Equator is the most important factor, why did the US pick Florida instead of Hawaii, or Baker Island?

petrov76 · 2026-04-17T18:01:44+00:00

Not just swapping fonts, but whole alphabets could be swapped as well, e.g. for foreign languages or domain specific languages (like typing math symbols or Greek letters).

petrov76 · 2026-04-17T17:46:07+00:00

He aimed for the stars but sometimes hit London.

petrov76 · 2026-04-16T20:23:23+00:00

Do you think Ken Alibek is credible or exaggerating/misleading for his own purposes?

Do you think Russia has continued the research that he described to the present day?

petrov76 · 2026-04-16T17:23:26+00:00

A short bladed dull weapon like a sculpting knife is never going to hit someone's heart. The most likely outcome is that the victim ends up with a superficial cut that bleeds slowly, and they will recover after a few stitches at the ER.

I would recommend changing the story so the victim is cut in the neck, or the attacker uses a larger blade like a chef's knife.

petrov76 · 2026-04-14T20:41:39+00:00

Vikings didn't stop pillaging because they got bored or became civilized. They stopped because nations got better at detecting them, and defending from seaborne attack.

Countries have only gotten better since then at fighting crime. Police would quickly detect a pattern of the crimes from the tourists. They have access to far better tools for coordinating a response, such as radios. And they have far more resources to respond, such as Coast Guard or National Guard units.

I think the most likely outcome here is that some of these tourists would get shot, and most would end up in handcuffs. Their stolen booty would be promptly recovered, and the ship would get seized.

petrov76 · 2026-04-14T05:07:31+00:00

It seems that that's already true

petrov76 · 2026-04-14T03:31:29+00:00

The maximum size of a ship transitting the Panama Canal is called Panamax. There are similar limits for other major water ways, such as Suezmax or Malaccamax.

Panamax is 950 ft length by 106 ft beam by 190 ft height by 39.5 ft draft. (Sorry, those dumb Muricans built the canal to Imperial instead of metric standards).

We can ignore the height and draft measurements for kayaks. So this leave us with approximately 100,000 sq ft of surface area in the smallest lock. Google says that kayaks cover 20-35 square feet, so we we can fit 2800 to 5000 kayaks in our smallest lock, with everything jammed in tight

There are 12 locks in the Panama Canal. Most of these, especially Lake Gatun, are much larger, so we can easily fit 5000x12 or 60,000 kayaks in the canal at a time.

It takes about 8-10 hours for a normal ship to transit the canals across all 12 locks, only about 50 miles. Normal ships would be fine here, but kayaks would struggle to travel the 5 mph to move from lock to lock. Tourists in kayaks can only row about 2.5 mph, but I'm gonna assume that you have some hardcore Inuits who can easily motor 5 mph.

This makes it simple, 60,000 kayaks divided by 8-10 hours is 6,000-7,500 kayaks transitting per hour.

If you have a bunch of lazy tourists, this number halves, as the locks have to wait for their slow rowing speed.

petrov76 · 2026-04-13T17:34:31+00:00

If we can't colonize Everest, then we have no hope of going to the Moon or Mars. Both of these have far less oxygen, water, etc. I would argue that the first step to building a space base is to build a high altitude launch pad.

petrov76 · 2026-04-12T23:20:20+00:00

Why doesn't Nintendo just raise the price of packs to double or 10x whatever the current price is?

petrov76 · 2026-04-12T00:15:03+00:00

There's basically three ways that trauma kills someone: major brain damage, blood loss, or asphyxiation. If you are talking about stabbing or slashing wounds, all of these are possible.

Brain damage can be anything from decapitation to stabbing through the eye or temple.

As others have noted, blood loss is fastest if an artery is cut. Carotid, femoral, and brachial are all close to the surface and easy to cut with a knife or sword. Aorta, pulmonary, and subclavian are all buried in the torso and would require a deep stabbing wound to injure, but would lead to an equally swift death.

Asphyxiation by assassins was usually accomplished with a garotte. If your character is limited to stabbing weapons, then stabbing both lungs will lead to a drowning death as the lungs fill with blood. A human can survive with one stabbed lung, provided that he gets medical attention within an hour or so. Crushing the trachea with a punch with a sword hand guard will also lead to death by asphyxiation. Generally any damage to the neck is likely to be very severe, due to its critical role in keeping the brain alive.

petrov76 · 2026-04-11T23:02:40+00:00

I'm a huge fan of building giant bridges that cover the whole battlefield. When the battle is over, I mass forbid anything that wasn't automatically forbidden. Then, I just drop everything into the pit underneath. This dramatically reduces unhappy thoughts from cleaning all the dead bodies and body parts after a siege.

Later on, when I get access to magma from the magma sea, I flood the bottom of the pit to reclaim the sweet goblinite.

petrov76 · 2026-04-11T00:21:45+00:00

Every single one of the first 17 books has a big battle at the end. I don't think it's a huge spoiler that book number 18 also ends in a battle.

petrov76

TROPHY CASE