You’re comparing between different sample pools, which matters when we’re talking about probability adjacent stuff. We’re not asking “from this large pool of people at an airport, who is likely to receive additional scrutiny?” Because of this, your comment about how you’ve seen people of all backgrounds get scanned isn’t relevant to OP’s point.

The scope we’re looking at is the pool of experiences across one person’s trips. Imagine if it was every time that you got stopped for additional checks at an airport, even when you couldn’t see any mistakes that you had made. If you get checked because your keys triggered the sensors, then that’s a mistake that you can learn from, but consider how it would feel if you meticulously complied with everything you were meant to do, but were still consistently pulled aside for additional checks.

I know that on the internet, you never know whether someone is being hyperbolic, or straight up spinning a yarn, but try to take OP on faith here and consider how dismissive your comment comes across. I don’t know OP’s particular circumstances, but I have previously made a comment similar to yours to a friend, who called me out on being an asshole. Back then, I was oblivious to the reality of these things.

My friend explained that the first time they were pulled aside for additional checks, they opted to believe that it was just a random thing. The second time, they felt more uneasy, but actively resisted the “victim mentality” (their words). By the 20th time, they had come to expect it as inevitable, and that no change to how they packed, or what they wore would change things. They desperately wanted to believe that they weren’t being targeted for additional searches, but after a certain point, it becomes impossible to believe that these things are random.

I was telling a friend about him the other day. She said she found it odd how it seems like he became a martyr for his ideals, in that the way that he is remembered is almost like he’s a mythological figure, more ideal than man. I agreed with her that the loss of humanity due to such a high profile death is tragic, but that it wasn’t the internet who turned him into a martyr, but the FBI (and whoever else was pushing for his prosecution).

They threw the book at Aaron Schwartz because they wanted to set a precedent. They wanted to turn him into a symbol, and that led to his death. I’m proud of how the internet rallied around him and made him into a different kind of symbol, but like you, I feel sad to think about what could have been if he hadn’t been killed (I know that he died by suicide, but saying that he “died” felt too passive). It sucks that he’s just a part of history now.

A huge aspect of this also is that it disproportionately benefits academics and students in parts of the world where there is less institutional access to journal subscriptions. That is to say that SciHub has been a significant force for democratising knowledge and countering historic inequities.

A facet of Scientism, as I understand it, is a sort of hero worship of “Great” scientists. Part of this is because it’s easier for us to build a narrative of history if we focus on key figure, but that’s antithetical to how science actually works. It neglects the importance of the wider scientific “ecosystem”, which includes mechanisms of peer review, academic teaching and learning etc.

I’ve known people who were pretty prominent academics, who got some of their best ideas from random places, like hanging out in a bar with academics from outside their field. But a good idea on its own matters very little: science, in practice, works on a foundation of trust and community, and basically any research has an entire team of people behind it.

I have no doubt that the scientist mentioned in the headline is exceptional at her job, but by presenting her as the scientist who is working on this presents an inaccurate perspective of how these things actually work. I see why the headline chose to present her as more essential than she likely is, but as it seems to for the person you’re replying to, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth

I find Scientism concerning because I am a scientist who is quite concerned by the gap between actual science, and how people use science-shaped rhetoric. An example of this is how in the UK, during COVID, the government repeatedly claimed they were “following the science”, despite many of their policies being completely contrary to what the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) had recommended.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the scientific method — I wouldn’t be a scientist otherwise. But writing news headlines about the achievements of scientists exists beyond science. Being opposed to Scientism isn’t being opposed to the scientific method. Rather, it’s more like acknowledging that science isn’t a universal tool for solving all ills. Personally, being against Scientism also means being against the weird way we put science, and scientists on a pedestal. I understand the sentiment (and hell, I’m probably a scientist in part because a younger me was chasing that pedestal), but I think it’s probably harmful long term — both to society and to science

Edit: fixed grammar

Adding the solution to your post is a classy move, and I approve

I dual boot Fedora and Arch. Fedora was just a fluke because it seemed like one of the most mainstream distros, and I was a Linux noob.

I liked Arch though because the Arch wiki is so useful for a beginner to learn from, even if you’re not on Arch. At first, Arch seemed too complex and difficult for me, as a beginner, but when I kept finding myself at the Arch wiki when troubleshooting, I realised how powerful good documentation is. I installed Arch with a “fixer-upper” type mindset, with the goal of using the greater power and customisability that Arch offers to build a config/setup that worked for me (learning all the while). It was a good challenge for someone who is mad, but not quite so mad as to dive into Gentoo or Linux From Scratch

A friend earlier commented that “maybe they didn’t intentionally hand over the credentials and instead the devices belonging to the DOGE doofuses were already thoroughly pwned by Russia” — basically what if it was due to incompetence?

I consider this a possibility, but also, it’s not exactly any better — it’s just a different kind of awful. Either way, it’s unjustifiable

I had a similar experience. The video that helped me had pretty poor video quality compared to some of the other results, so I only turned to it when I was burnt out from basically every other video being useless for my task. Props to all the Indian educational YouTubers

Ah yes, because the rest of the world is so great at responding to online mis/disinformation.

It blew my mind when I learned about this, and how people who have money from completely legit sources have had little to no recourse in getting the money back; it’s the money itself which is considered guilty of a crime, and money isn’t entitled to due process. It’s fucked beyond belief.

I already have it in a virtual machine: the past ✨

I can see why the French right love her so much, given that the right wing do a lot of “rules for thee, but not for me”

I feel like there’s a joke in here about Linux users propensity to distrohop being like a ritual reenactment of switching to Linux for the first time (without having to defile one’s computer with Windows again)

Okay, but consider that the ultra-rich technofascists are a group that has had a disproportionate impact on the continued pillaging of the climate. They aren’t just opportunists wanting to make the most of the fragments of society that will remain after climate disaster, but people who have been working to bring that scenario into fruition because it’s profitable in the short term whilst positioning them to take even more power.

I cannot emphasise enough that they want this, and that this ideology goes further back than the current wave of them. The reality of climate change is unfathomably dire, but I hope you understand why it’s necessary to resist these people as part of whatever climate resilience we can build. I’ll probably be dead before shit really hits the fan, climate-wise, so my goal is to do whatever I can to support the people who come after me. If those techno-assholes are allowed to inherit the fragments of society, the entire planet is even more fucked

(tangent to your question because someone already answered) I think that courtroom stenographers (people who type up what’s said) use special chording keyboards. I’ve also been to a few events where there has been someone transcribing things in real time for accessibility purposes, and they also use a cool looking chording keyboard. It takes some learning, but the max typing speed is way faster than any conventional keyboard could manage — which is why skilled people use them for transcribing stuff

A brand that I’m aware of that does them is Charachorder.

Just adding onto the good answer you already got, but the thing that made this click to me was understanding that if you’re not port forwarding, you’re limited in the connections you can make to other peers. Specifically, you can only connect to peers who are fully available. Whereas if you’re port forwarding, then you can connect both to people who are limited, and to people who are fully available.

I imagine you would get faster download speeds if you were port forwarding, but my impression is that this mainly is a factor for seeding, which matters more if you’re on a private tracker that requires a certain download/upload ratio; it’s way harder to keep that ratio above 1.0 if you’re limited in the peers you can connect to.

This is well articulated. Like many, I am also frustrated by the “They go low, we go high” strategy in which Democrat politicians hamstring themselves, but on the wider scale, it is useful to bear in mind that we are fighting for a fundamentally different world than what our opponents are (though certainly it would be great if elected officials could be a little less pathetic)

I wonder if this might have been why they shared it. Sort of like “We’ve got an idea that we think is good, but it also clearly needs work”

Sad news. fivethirtyeight made one of my favourite things on the internet. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

It’s an excellent piece of science communication and dynamic data visualisation. I say this as a scientist who is increasingly drifting towards the science-comm side of research.

They did incredible work, and I hope that the people behind the work can find stability and fulfillment in whatever work they seek after this.