Tapir-Wharf Hypothesis

The funny/sad thing is, I don't really think of myself as conservative (no doubt there are people who would consider me so, but I've voted for the most left wing option available to me at every election in my entire adult life and have no expectation that that will stop, so I figure that probably counts for something), and "literally required to submit an ideological test where I must renounce my beliefs" is pretty much how I feel about the situation you've described. It does, indeed, suck.

"crucially, it doesn't work" is such a good thing to say after describing a strategy. very useful.

e.g. the waterfall model

Personally I favour following that up with "but other than that it's really solid".

my babies!!!😭

I thought a lot of the copy protection relied on the inherently analogue nature of the medium. Stuff like weak bits that would flip on read because the magnetic strength was in between what it needed to be or the encoding was subtly off.

computers should not all come with floppy drives. i want to be able to buy small cheap computers without paying for a bunch of random boondoggles I will never use.

Yeah... I reckon it's fair to point out that something like a modern equivalent of floppy disks would be cool if it was standardised, but actual old 3.5" floppy disks? 1.44MB probably really isn't that great in the year 2026. I'm as critical of unnecessarily huge files as the next person, but come on now. The last thing I bought on floppy disk was in like 1994 and that came on five disks - they were annoyingly low capacity even then! So there are USB drives and they're great, but also, SD cards. You can get a put-it-in-your-wallet-and-forget-it-sized USB micro SD card reader to make sure you can always use your cards. You can get 2GB ones for like... a couple of dollars. For a 'cloud storage can go die' mindset (that I fully support) I think that's the modern weapon of choice.

Tell me something about your day perhaps?

For some reason when I woke up I had the phrase stuck in my head "if my tummy hurts the most it's because I have eaten the choccies of giants". No recollection of any dreams, though.

good news is apparently it peaked around 2015-2016 and has dropped slightly?

interesting that gas seems relatively stable, I thought it was still rising

Since that's as a share of total, maybe hydropower isn't declining in absolute terms, but new hydropower isn't happening at the same rate as power generation in general is going up? (wild-arsed guess though) Also, my understanding is that hydropower 'feels' a lot better than it is. It might burn hydrocarbons but it pretty seriously bones the local ecology, and has pretty serious potential for catastrophic failure and mayhem. If environmentalists aren't pushing for it, and the forces of evil aren't either, maybe it's just dying a natural death?

Just had the thought, while thinking about something, "I guess you want as close to an even number [of people] as possible". What does "close to an even number" mean........

I think your brain is tricking you. I bet you've heard the phrase is reference to something like "close to an even number (of men and women) at this dance we're organising" and then the context was removed and the shape of the phrase lives on in your memory. So it means "as close to the same number from each group" not "as close to divisible by two". I hope it's not out of line for me to steal your 'uninteresting' tag for this reply; it feels apt.

"Comme ci, comme ça" shouldn't mean so-so, it should instead mean something similar to "you win some, you lose some". But I guess less narrowly about personal fortune/misfortune, and more of a very broad "stuff is sometimes good and sometimes bad". Comme ci, comme ça. Just the rhythm of it, and the symmetry, would express that thought very nicely in my opinion. It shouldn't mean so-so.

I relate to this post so hard. It made me realise that all this time (by which I mean, the years since I learned a pathetic amount of French in high school), I assumed 'comme ci, comme ça' meant something like "a little from column A, a little from column B" that cashed out to 'so-so'. You're so right. It should be more ambivalent than so-so.

I don’t have a hill in this fight vs. is that the dog you wish to die on

Is this really the hill you want to have a dog on?

Can you tell me something about your day please?

Unfortunately, I imagine due to timezone differences, my day has barely started and nothing has happened yet. I ate some cereal, I guess. It's actually going to be kind of a big day for me later though so I can report back if you'd like. It might be a different day for you by then though.

I should look into how to apply for awards and stuff so I can describe myself as an "award losing author". That would be super fun. I could get a tshirt made.

This is a good idea but I can't shake the instinct that an author losing an award would be distinct from merely failing to win it. I feel like an author losing an award would have to be like... you've won an award in the past, but then you write such an awful book that you're ceremonially stripped of the award, you know what I mean?

How is your day going today?

It is quicker for me to get to work by bike than any other way, and I've left it late enough now that I have to ride or else I'll be late. I have a kind of sore back and haven't ridden for a while because my back is sore though, so I'm a little nervous, but it helps to think of myself as that guy tying himself to the mast, but instead of sirens it's public transport. And instead of whatever happens with the sirens, it's being slightly late for work on a day where that doesn't particularly matter. I haven't read the thing with the sirens though so maybe that is what happens? This is a different day to the one you originally asked about though; I hope that's okay.