Really, there’s nothing specifically wrong with having a low birth rate. On a large scale, we have an overpopulation problem, and there’s not really a negative for each person having fewer children. Of course, smarter people will decide to have fewer kids. But eventually, it will all balance out.

This idea is a complete non-starter from a practical standpoint. Parents would complain about it either way. Either they wouldn’t want girls in school early or they’d want boys in school early, too.

It’s just much easier to treat children all the same.

Also, I personally think this plan would backfire. Girls graduating wouldn’t want to have to be adults earlier than boys, so they’d stay in school longer. And from what I’ve heard, the most reliable way to reduce birth rates is to educate women more.

I think everyone also knows how to ethically increase the birth rate. Make having children easy and affordable. Lots of government assistance. Make sure everybody has access to cheap or free childcare.

And there’s also the generational problems. Young adults can see the problems that the previous generations caused. You can’t go back in time to fix those. It will be expensive to change this sort of thing.

But quick fixes aren’t going to change the underlying problems.

The idea that a state government is unnecessarily at the mercy of any corporation is hard to comprehend. Especially, as in this case, a foreign corporation.

Open source shouldn’t only be the standard for governments. It should be the minimum requirement.

Those splice type of cheats require a highly skilled player who can play well for short amounts of time.

pouch protectors

Putin is willing to sacrifice Russia’s future for his own current glory.

Just think how many young Russian poets have been sent off to Ukraine to die.

Did we read the same article?

Her achievements that they mentioned are all related to Down Syndrome. The reactions they mentioned are reactions to her having Down Syndrome.

The article also talks about her rise in politics due to help from another politician… wait for it… who also has Down Syndrome.

I’m sure that she has more to her persona than her disability, just like everyone with a disability. However, the article is actually about her having Down Syndrome.

It’s all over the place. Here in Texas, too. I’m fully vaccinated, and mask in public, but this has been a tough season for me, as I caught stuff from careless relatives.

I read relatively slowly, but I have the ability to read much faster. I simply like reading more slowly. I have this weird suspicion that people who read very quickly are getting information more quickly, but that they’re either not absorbing it fully, or they’re not enjoying it as much as I do. But that’s obviously a biased perspective.

Every part of your comment has something factually wrong or fallacious.

I don’t get feedback just because you read it.

My reading the part I am giving feedback on is a prerequisite for actually giving feedback. I am obviously a person who graciously responded to your request, not somebody that you somehow ordered to give feedback. I don’t know what you think you gain from viewing it this way.

I’m thankful for feedback but my sentence was accurate.

I didn’t say it was inaccurate, but that it didn’t tell people why to read the article. You didn’t ask me to tell you inaccuracies. You asked for “feedback”. You also don’t seem to be thankful, because if you were thankful, you’d simply accept the feedback instead of throwing up straw-man arguments.

I don’t benefit if you read it.

You have exactly repeated your previous statement that I already proved wrong.

I will offer you one last piece of feedback. Just stop arguing. You can never look gracious pursuing an argument where you ask for advice and then argue with people who took time out of their day to help you.

Upvotes and downvotes don’t determine whether people are factually right, but they do help you gauge what people think when they read your comments, and what I’m seeing is that you’re not ingratiating yourself to the people who you are asking to read your article. Even if you could win this argument, and you can’t, you wouldn’t want to, because you’d look bad in doing so. When you ask for feedback, and feedback is given, just graciously accept it. If it’s bad feedback, then just ignore it.

I don’t benefit if you read it.

You don’t benefit financially, but there are other benefits. For example, you specifically asked for feedback, and you have received some.

It’s true that the actual “story” is very short. 1 kB is 1000 bytes and 1 KiB is 1024 bytes. But the post is not about this, but about why calling 1024 a kilobyte always was wrong even in a historical context and even though almost everybody did that.

Yes. But it does raise the question of why you didn’t say that in either your title:

Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes

or your description:

I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts.

This one is about why it was a mistake to call 1024 bytes a kilobyte. It’s about a 20min read so thank you very much in advance if you find the time to read it.

Feedback is very much welcome. Thank you.

The title and description were your two chances to convince people to read your article. But what they say is that it’s a 20 minute read for 10 seconds of information. There is nothing that says there will be historical context.

I get that you might want to make the title more clickbaitey, but why write a description out if you’re not going to tell what’s actually in the article?

So, that’s my feedback. I hope this helps.

One other bit of closely-related feedback, for your writing, in general. Always start with the most important part. Assume that people will stop reading unless you convince them otherwise. Your title should convince people to read the article, or at least to read the description. The very first part of your description is your chance to convince people to click through to the article, but you used it to tell an anecdote about why you wrote the article.

I’m the kind of person who often reads articles all the way through, but I have discovered that most people lose interest quickly and will stop reading.

I also assume that people are answering that way because they thought it was a question.

However, it’s also possible that they saw it described as a 20 minute read, and knew that the answer actually takes about 10 seconds to read, and figured that they’d save people 19 minutes and 50 seconds.

Still, “ally” and saying he was “behind” the bomb implies that this guy was not taking orders from Putin, and planned this himself.

Shoddy journalism.

If you really feel that way, then you can make a good comment, rather than complaining. Be the change you want to see in the world.

I did say that people and AI would have similar poor results at explaining themselves. So we agree on that.

The one thing I’ll add is that certain people performing certain tasks can be excellent at explaining themselves, and if a specific LLM AI exists that can do that, then I’m not aware of it. I added LLM into there because I want to ensure that it’s an AI with some ability for generalized knowledge. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are very specific AIs that have been trained only to explain a very narrow thing.

I guess I’m in a mood to be reminded of old Science Fiction stories, because I’m reminded of a story where they had people who were trained to memorize situations to testify later. For some reason, I initially think it’s a hugely famous novel like Stranger in a Strange Land, but I might easily be wrong. But anyways, the example they gave in the book was that the person described a house, let’s say the house was white, then they described it as being white on the side that was facing them. The point being that they’d be explaining something as closely to right as was possible, to the point that there was no way that they’d be even partially wrong.

Anyways, that seems tangentially related at best, but the underlying connection is that people, with the right training and motivation, can be very mentally disciplined, which is unlike any AI that I know, and also probably very unlike this comment.

People are able to explain themselves, and some AI also can, with similar poor results.

I’m reminded of one of Azimov’s stories about a robot whose job was to aim an energy beam at a collector on Earth.

Upon talking to the robot, they realized that it was less of a job to the robot and more of a religion.

The inspector freaked out because this meant that the robot wasn’t performing to specs.

Spoilers: Eventually they realized that the robot was doing the job either way, and they just let it do it for whatever reason.

Just to make it crystal clear, a Christian who is being inaugurated as President will swear a solemn oath, almost certainly with their hand on the Bible, to defend the Constitution.

Joe Biden, like every President before him, including Trump, swore a solemn oath not to do what John Schneider is insisting upon.

If a President elect believed what Schneider is suggesting, he would either be unable to take the oath of office, and thus could not ever be President, or he would swear to God that he was telling the truth when he was lying.

Password manager is one of the few “free” services that I pay for. Still feeling pretty good about 1password.