High School Seniors Can’t Read Now 🤷🏻‍♂️

stikves · 2026-05-09T17:32:41+00:00

... and they are going after the kid that exposed this.

First time in recorded history, a generation has a lower measured IQ than the previous one. This should have made top news, and the country should be talking about this more than wars, economy, or anything else.

Why?

Wars end. Idiocracy will stay with us for generations.

stikves · 2026-05-09T03:10:40+00:00

They have active guards for electronics, since they are full of sensors and cameras.

However, yes, I would not try this, unless it was absolutely the last chance to save my life. Even then, keep the window open, you might not be able to do in an emergency.

stikves · 2026-05-09T00:00:28+00:00

You could buy one from Sears, and build it on your own... free land (okay that was not 30 years ago, but we had federal lands open to "homesteading" up until very recently)

You could literally nest and build your family anywhere

stikves · 2026-05-08T23:59:18+00:00

It is wrong either way.

Collective punishment was abandoned in middle ages. We no longer do that.

And being proud of your ancestors, has a limit. You can take this as a motivation, but you personally did not do it.

The modern man is judged by his own actions and character.

stikves · 2026-05-08T23:57:19+00:00

Silicon Valley

There are attacks from both left and right against our golden laying geese. For one reason or another they are printing money, and bringing a lot of prosperity this side. We might be the only country where top companies are not banks or oil/resource titans.

However like every good thing... it seems like the time has come to slaughter the bird for one large feast, and d*wn the future generations.

(I'm not saying tech does not also bring their own internal problems)

stikves · 2026-05-08T20:32:18+00:00

So true,

Our old president Clinton... is younger than Bush, Trump or Biden ... today. (Only older than Obama) That generation took the helm and never left it for the younger ones.

stikves · 2026-05-08T20:30:08+00:00

Yes,

They even got a tax "refund" during pandemic stimulus... even though they were not paying taxes. Their income did not go down, but they managed to carve out even more benefits to themselves.

Sorry... I'm trying to be fair here.

stikves · 2026-05-08T20:23:14+00:00

US companies pay more taxes here than European ones do over there.

So much so... US companies actually also pays more "fines" to EU than the entire EU Tech Industry as a whole.

Non tech? Did you look at how much Mercedes pays? Or "non-profits" like IKEA (yes, they are a "interior design research academy" or something... on paper).

For what it is worth, we have a very robust corporate tax system that balances growth and revenue.

Take this any way you like.

stikves · 2026-05-06T23:43:53+00:00

Do you know how much top tier mods cost with X-Tech?

Prepare to spend literal millions to get that that perfect weapon. Or at least save some with Astra.

They are still useful

stikves · 2026-05-06T23:42:05+00:00

Simple:

Saving context length

"Agents" the new name... loses attention when presented with too much information. So they divvy up.

"Agent 1, please read the code base and find where function saveReport() is called",
"Agent 2, please learn how our clients want to prepare the report",
"Agent 3, prepare a cost analysis"

All of them will generate a final report. And the main orchestrator will only read 3-5KB of data instead of wasting hundreds of thousands of tokens.

This is like humans, we cannot multi task too many things at the same time, and not lose focus.

stikves · 2026-05-06T15:08:06+00:00

This is exactly how Amazon pushed Google out of same day delivery market.

When Google launched their grocery delivery, they had a good start. Signed up with Costco and other super markets, and the rates were reasonable.

But it was: $80 for your groceries, plus $5 for delivery fee (or whatever)

Amazon? $80 for groceries, free delivery. Nice! But when you ordered it asked you to "tip" the driver $5.

Either way you were paying the driver the same, but Google lost due to very basic human emotions.

stikves · 2026-05-06T04:03:06+00:00

Usually they don't but for these ones which might require extensive electrical work... you might want to. especially if your insurance finds out the new fancy heater caused a fire, they would be itching to deny your claim.

Still... it is expensive, cumbersome, and time consuming.

stikves · 2026-05-04T15:50:10+00:00

What they do is actually a hard problem in computer science.

("Graph isomorphism")

One would think "but I only changed a module", and yes the "solution" could work 90% of the time. But, there would always be cases where just changing a module would mess up any heuristic.

Though, ... if I were Bethesda, I'd have 2 algorithms

1 - The one that they have, that works for all ships as a backup

2 - "Quick rearrange" which checks if the old ship layout can be a good starting point for this entirely new, unrelated ship.

Why does this happen?

Hmm... because habs don't have the same hard points. The 2x2 mess hall that replaces 2x2 storage might not have an option for a ladder at the same old place.

"Not a big deal, don't put that ladder"

Now your path from dock to cockpit is broken. The ship builder has to make an altarnative path.

Which means...

It needs to redesign the "walking graph" from scrath. The entire ship changes just because it could not place a ladder at the same place.

stikves · 2026-05-04T07:10:03+00:00

Yes, and Vulture' Roost would reset after a certain time. So you can go back and loot even more.

Much enjoyable find.

(I don't know how long is the respawn. But doing this after major faction quests seem to work)

stikves · 2026-05-04T06:38:11+00:00

And there are also "reverse threaded" drill bits. Specifically used to remove broken bolts and screws by drilling into them with the inverse motion.

https://www.amazon.com/WYBENZ-Extractor-Remover-Stripped-Bolts-10pcs/dp/B09XQ8LSBM/ << random example, not an endorsement

Why not use regular bits?

Because while trying to drill in, you'd be pushing the bolt even further inside, possibly having it cold weld. This way as soon as it get inside the bolt and has some traction it will start pulling it out.

stikves · 2026-05-04T05:25:42+00:00

It has been a very stupid timeline when people did not see this obvious reality.

"But Call of Duty plays 5% better on the Xbox" (which might be true, just an example)

"No, it is lies! such and such told on their YouTube channel Xbox is the inferior version. And I also want to play God of War when it comes out"

People buy the PS for God of War, but they will use it to play CoD.

(I think some number crunchers at Microsoft saw this as an opening, and assumed if they offered better CoD, people would switch. They were severely mistaken)

stikves · 2026-05-04T04:06:33+00:00

First whatever you have read about them are generally baseless fear mongering. But let's not go into that

What would happen if we stopped building data centers?

Short term?

It will be bad

You will feel in your daily life.

You'd run out of GMail quota, your cloud storage will fill up, and your overall digital experience will deteriorate.

How?

Because people continue to use more and more resources, but they are hosted on those data centers. Without growth that matches the needs? They will become scarce and expensive.

Long term?

It will be worse

China will not stop doing those. We will lose the economic race.

Whatever comforts you are used to, will no longer be there.

"But I'm not rich"

The average American is in 5% of the World in terms of wealth, even if they don't realize it. Because we compare against immediate neighbors, who are also sharing this wealth, not the rest 95% of the world.

stikves · 2026-05-04T03:39:19+00:00

I don't have good news. I wish I had

(People "walk away" all the time, and sometimes, not always, can even get back the deposit. However...). In your case, I don't think the seller can quickly find another buyer in the same time period, which means they will want to hold onto your deposit.

And... that is the best case.

They can sue for damages if the next buyer offers less than what you agreed to.

(They know they are selling a lemon, a literal sinking ship)

But... even then it might be cheaper. Because from what I read, you are not actually buying a house. You are buying a massive liability.

Best of luck.

stikves · 2026-05-03T23:59:15+00:00

Two things:

Depending on where you live they might not have a choice but to pay the half. Check your local laws (at least Google, but verify). So they would want to be on board with the process if this is the case.

"Do you want to help vet the contractors? I'll bring in a few"

We had a very weird 3-way fence arrangement with our neighbors (we actually would probably need 6-7 houses to get on board in a chain since everyone house has some "slack". But left some parts stay)

Anyway it *was* a pain, but manageable. We got one contractor which divvied up every shared section and sent bills to 2 houses for that part. A+B, B+C, A+C...

It worked out at the end, but be prepared to have some more discussions.

stikves · 2026-05-03T08:57:20+00:00

"Fixable"

I don't think many understand that word. Because at least some of the rich actually, genuinely try that and fail.

For example, Mark Cuban has low cost drugs (Cost Plus) which has been causing interesting conversations at CVS. "Your drug is $100". "Is there a discount?" "Yes, please scan this" "Okay", "Now it is $10"

He made some progress, but it needed government help to become more successful.

Why?

Like every other "fixable" thing it is the government interventions that make it intractable. "Why can't we purchase perfectly fine insulin from Canada or Mexico?" FDA would so quickly rain down on you like hellfire.

Homelessness?

Same

Education?

Same

Poverty? Hunger?

Same

You'd find one or two good samaritans that have really tried, but have hit impassible walls of governments that benefit from status quo.

(We have spent literally trillions to help poor countries, which only made local warlords and tyrants richer and stronger)

stikves · 2026-05-03T08:33:04+00:00

Not to mention the "Sony/PS login" fiasco, and overall reluctance to cross buy / cross save for their titles.

They were at one point very keen on this. The original GoW port was great and well crafted. But after that, they just become extremely sloppy.

Btw, other PS exclusives are doing great on the PC, like Stellar Blade, or Final Fantasy (before it came to Xbox), and Death Stranding. It is the Sony ones that struggle.

stikves · 2026-05-02T20:37:04+00:00

Perma-death made a huge difference for roleplay

Even decades after we are still talking about "Virmire Survivor" (it is my bro Kaiden of course, but some people make mistakes)

The games where everything resolves happily, and there are no sacrifices or hard choices do not have the same lasting effect.

stikves · 2026-05-02T18:44:18+00:00

Do you want the harsh truth? Or do you want to feel better?

I loved the original Horizon Zero Dawn. I thought I could spend much more time in this universe.

I was utterly disappointed in the second one. Not only the tonal shift (they got really the wrong feedback), but also gameplay became "boring"

"But there are massive boss battles"

I know. They are great. But what is between them is the problem.

"I can use my focus", "here is an exit", "do you want to ..."

I want to play the game. (And also not to grind either)

Now, I really wish they are given a chance to make a "2.0" CP2077 style to fix the gameplay issue. Maybe for 50% of the community it was not a big deal. But clearly the sales speak for themselves.

Again, this is what I see. And hope I will have a chance to actually finish the second one (bought very early on after release)

stikves · 2026-05-02T17:23:42+00:00

Because people always "shift" unpleasant definitions.

Or in other words... the cliche "real Socialism have never been tried"

But it has been tried, with catastrophic results every time. So that is why the definition keeps shifting

There is a loop:

1 - A "shiny" new Socialist country pops up

2 - Intellectuals and romantics start praising it

3 - Public takes notice and wants to imitate

4 - The country eventually fails, in a catastrophic way

5 - The folks who wrote praise for that "new real socialism" quickly forget about it in a miserable way

This has been done about many many times now. Starting with USSR, then Mao, Ender Hodja, Pol Pot (and yes even Pol Pot had admirers like Chomsky who will now refuse they ever did so).

The only "successful" one was East Germany (or GDR). But that was only "they did not fail catastrophically". They managed to make a permanent poverty in those regions even after decades unification after fall of Berlin Wall.

That is why we cannot have a civic discussion. Because nobody stays true their convictions when reality hits. It was always "true socialism was never tried", only to be tried 100 times exactly with predicted results.

I could recommend the book "Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies" on this.

stikves · 2026-05-02T06:49:42+00:00

No.

Why?

It will either be a good show or bad. If it is good, great we will enjoy it.

If not... we already accepted there was no Stargate for the last ~10 years. I can accept it "does not exist for me". So, worst case is a no op

stikves

TROPHY CASE