Messages

391

General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: Workshop Booze Up VII - New Year, Same Plague, Same Booze Up, Deja Vu

« on: June 14, 2022, 04:48:09 AM »

I may be able to resit the rest and then maybe go on my placement and move into year 2 or maybe go on a placement and then take a year out and then move onto year 2, if I can provide valid extenuating circumstances but idk that I've got any good ones.
We'll have to see.

Your landlord really does suck.

Try some vague words about COVID and the current world situation?  Most programs need students more than the students need them.

392

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Automattic's Ominvorous CDN

« on: June 09, 2022, 04:00:46 PM »

That's interesting.

Most good (or "non creepy") CDN providers will have a TTL on cache files, and also not copy things unless you have asked them to!

And the only way to see if they have a copy of something is to ping a URL, which causes them to make a copy.  That is why the DWaves blog thought they were being given a list of URLs as soon as they were uploaded to a blog, because as soon as they were uploaded to the blog they could be found at i0.wp.com - i1.wp.com and i2.wp.com  its a catch-22.

By indefinitely I mean that its their discretion how long files live on their CDN, and outsiders don't know the policy.

Edit: someone has checked, and they do not respect robots.txt A domain can reject all crawlers and Automattic will still copy files from it for anyone who pings their domains.

393

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Canadian Politics 2022

« on: June 09, 2022, 04:45:49 AM »

Yes, I guess the specialist vs democratic choice-maker in government is an issue in democracies way back to Athens. But the attempt to square that circle by not having the minister make any choices or be a specialist is a bit of an overly Humphrey Appleby brand of problem-solving.

I know nothing about Anand besides this article, but her career in parliament looks like how Trudeau probably envisioned his policies around sex and race working out: appointing people who are different from him but fit smoothly into the Liberal machine.  Although the interviewer noticed one difference:

Anand still misses hashing out intricate concepts with academic colleagues. That may be why she is more open by default than other prominent members of a government that has made a maddening art of centralized control and message management. The hitch comes when Anand talks about her current portfolio. On the topic of defence, she frequently slips into talking-point mode, suddenly less frank or willing to acknowledge uncertainty or conflict, falling back on a canned phrase or fact. The shift is stark, as though someone rolled down metal shutters over a storefront.

It will be interesting to see whether as she gains more experience in parliament, she grows more independent or goes along to get along.

394

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Automattic's Ominvorous CDN

« on: June 09, 2022, 02:24:23 AM »

Most of us are familiar with content delivery networks: instead of serving all requests for a file from one central server, you scatter copies across different servers in different locations and fetch the closest one.  It helps giant sites which serve lots of photos, audio, and video reduce lag time and prevent any one server from being overwhelmed or taking the file offline if it becomes inacessible. 

But did you know that for any URL of a media file like this picture of Sir David Attenborough https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/125EA/production/_125324257_hi076596136.jpg you can upload it to Automattic's CDN just by surfing to any of these URLs:

• http://i0.wp.com/ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/125EA/production/_125324257_hi076596136.jpg
• http://i1.wp.com/ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/125EA/production/_125324257_hi076596136.jpg
• http://i2.wp.com/ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/125EA/production/_125324257_hi076596136.jpg

And once you do that, it will be distributed around their global network of servers and stay on them indefinitely.  For more information and live updates see this blog post

395

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Canadian Politics 2022

« on: June 08, 2022, 05:56:31 PM »

Macleans has a profile of Liberal cabinet minister Anita Anand.  A juicy bit and one of interest to Jubal:

when Oakville Liberals gathered at a local banquet hall that June to vote, Anand emerged as the nominee. The general election was in mid-October, so that summer and fall were a blur of maps, driveways and doors to be knocked. Because Anand is a talker, canvassing became a delicate ballet, as aides tried to move her along at the doors while the rest of the team was waiting halfway down the street. She ended up beating the Conservative candidate by seven percentage points.

Soon after the election, she was summoned to a meeting with some of the transition team advising the second-term Trudeau government. They wanted to know about any skeletons lurking in closets, so she knew they were vetting her for something. A week later, she pulled into a parking garage at Toronto Pearson International Airport in her husband’s pickup truck, a coat thrown hastily over the dishevelled clothes she’d been wearing at home when her son called to say his car battery had died. They’d connected the jumper cables and she was sitting in the truck, with her son hollering at her to start the engine, when her phone rang with a call from the PMO switchboard. First she screamed, then she answered. They told her to be in Ottawa to meet with the Prime Minister the next morning.

Anand walked into the room a jangle of nerves; she had met Trudeau a few times, but didn’t know him in any real way. When he told her he wanted her to be the minister of public services and procurement, she gathered herself and responded, “I would be so honoured,” just as she’d rehearsed in case she was rattled in the moment. “On my way out I shed a little tear,” she says. “And then I had to go find out what public services and procurement was.”
...
When she’s had her way with the speech, she and her team rehearse media questions. Her press secretary, Daniel Minden, does an eerily perfect imitation of the default journalist tone of a snotty teenager who’s just caught you sneaking into the house drunk. In response, Anand rhymes off the talking points and line items from the week-old budget that she’s still committing to memory.

Her previous career was as a law professor, so not particularly helpful in preparing to buy the government's stuff, but if your vision of government is a flock of appointees doing the work while MPs come and go as figureheads without authority to make decisions (shrugs)  She seems to have done all right.  And the federal Liberals have a problem of disrespecting people (including Parliament!), and letting them know they disrespect them, while verbally denying it because that would be uncouth.

396

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: UK Politics 2022

« on: June 07, 2022, 11:11:41 PM »

From the day David Cameron resigned to whenever BoJo got in, there was intense fighting within the Tories over who would be PM (and who would have to lead the country into the glorious sunlit uplands of Brexit).  Is there any sign of that again?

397

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Canadian Politics 2022

« on: June 03, 2022, 06:29:13 PM »

Am I right in thinking that Ontario's progressive wing probably suffers especially from the lack of preference voting or proportionality? I've heard a lot of vote splitting grumbling from Canadians in that respect.

First Past the Post creates many problems for people who want Anyone But Conservative, and it encourages the Liberals and Conservatives to aim at pleasing 40% of voters regardless what the rest of the country thinks.  Wikipedia gives 40% Conservative (83 seats), 24% NDP (31 seats), 24% Liberal (8 seats), 6% Green (1 seat).

Edit: FPTP also encourages similar parties to fight over the same ridings, rather than expand their support across the province or nation.

Only 43% of elegible voters voted.  Part of the problem may have been that everyone is exhausted.

Former Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Derek Sloan tried his luck in Ontario and failed to win a seat.  I have talked about him before.

I don't know much about the Ontario Liberals and whether they are a party of the establishment with vaguely universitied urban lefty sentiments like the federal Liberals.

398

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Canadian Politics 2022

« on: June 03, 2022, 03:58:08 AM »

Welp, another Canadian election returns the status quo ante comitionem.  A Conservative government under Doug Ford in Ontario with the NDP as the second largest party (their leader won her seat but is stepping down, the Liberal leader did not win a seat).  Ontario and Quebec handled the COVID pandemic almost as incompetently as the US and UK.  People in Ontario says he and his party followed the modern Canadian Conservative playbook of avoiding reporters and debates as much as possible in favour of photo-opps and scripted public statements.

399

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Canadian Politics 2022

« on: May 31, 2022, 08:27:10 PM »

Finally some more Canadian policy news:

Quebec has passed its bill requiring immigrants to the province to interact with provincial institutions in French after only six months of residence.  This is naturally producing a counter-reaction from indigenous and visible minority groups.

Indy news outlets object to the latest bill to subsidize old media on the grounds that its just a handout to old media and excludes online-first outfits.

The federal government wants to ban the import or sale of new handguns and buy back a list of long guns.  As I have said before, the problem is that most firearms used in attacks on strangers in Canada seem to be illegal imports from the USA.  The government is not very good at tracking and identifying them.  Its not clear to me that a handgun ban would have the desired effects, but it would spoil the fun of shooters and collectors.  And enumerating badness ("these 1500 models of firearms are Prohibited") is always a failure compared to enumerating goodness ("all firearms firing brass cartridges manufactured in 1898 and before are Permitted").  When we limited magazine capacity, which does seem to have been effective policy, we said "magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds are Prohibited" not "the following magazines are prohibited: Glock A4 12-round, Glock A4 15-round, ..."

There is an Ontario provincial election on 3 June.  So far it looks like Doug Ford will survive his terrible handling of the pandemic because under First Past the Post, a party with 35-40% support can beat 60-65% support for the two main opposition parties.

Edit: oh, and BC received an exemption from the law criminalizing small amounts of drug possession.  As I think I have said, tainted drugs are killing more people in BC than COVID.

400

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Russia/Ukraine Crisis 2022

« on: May 27, 2022, 01:43:55 AM »

The canadian political magazine Maclean's has an interview with a Canadian-Ukrainian who went from the Canadian Army Reserve, to signing on to play professional soccer in Ukraine, to the International Legion, to the Territorial Defense

He had the impression that the Ukrainian government saw the International Legion more as something to use in propaganda ("we have x volunteers from y countries helping us against the Russian fascists") than in combat.  He felt that the training was very basic and seemed designed not to weed anyone out.

I hadn’t been at the Yavoriv base long, though, when I realized the International Legion wasn’t all it was hyped up to be. A lot of people had taken up President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for help, but that didn’t translate into a capable fighting force. Some of the guys lacked the mental discipline to be soldiers. There would be a drill, for instance, and they would take their time putting on their shoes and getting dressed. At a boot camp for Canadian reserves, they would have been punished for that.

They weren’t receiving the kind of training—the yelling and breaking people down—that scares away people who lack the mental toughness to operate in a war zone. This training seemed designed to give them just enough basic skill that commanders could throw them into the fight. We did some physical training and some offensive and defensive tactical manoeuvres, and that was about it. Most of the volunteers seemed to think they were there on some kind of adventure vacation. I was skeptical they would ever be ready.

Gwynne Dyer is past his prime, but he does have the interesting observation that post-Soviet Russia is still run by former Communist officials.  So its hard to tell which parts of their troubles are inherent in the Russian state, and which parts are specific Communist dysfunctions.  The oligarchs are not exactly savoury, and Kamil Galeev is suspicious of Russian 'opposition leaders' and emigrants with lots of money.

401

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: World Elections/Politics 2022

« on: May 21, 2022, 10:20:33 PM »

Bongbong Marcos did indeed win the Philippine election. Grim news really.

I don't have access to global news, just the kinds of places, people, and events that the Guardian, the NYT, the CBC, and other Anglo Old Media talk about.  Does it look like Rodrigo Duerte picked a Marcos with his daughter as co-runner as a way of retiring to bowl at drug users' skulls or whatever old mass murderers do in retirement?

The situation in Sri Lanka is disturbing but its hard to understand why the economy is collapsing.

402

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Canadian Politics 2022

« on: May 19, 2022, 02:49:45 AM »

Welp, Alberta premier Jason Kenney has resigned after only getting 51% support among party members in a leadership review.  The man who would be Prime Minister is a one-term premier!

More skeevy things are coming out about RCMP behaviour before, during, and after the Portapique massacre (but not the underlying cause for the RCMP's strange behaviour).

And a hospital infection control officer, Dr. Jennifer Grant of UBC, has joined the Urgency of Normal anti-infection-control propaganda outfit We did not go back to pooping in the drinking water after cholera or doing surgery with unwashed hands after Semelweiss #urgencyOfFecalNormal

Canada's strong response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is encouraging, but also typical of Canadian foreign policy this century: Canadian governments are glad to send troops or weapons into any local war the US supports, as long as not too many Canadians will die, but not interested in learning about the local situation or making long-term plans.  Their world is very provincial even though Canadian is cosmopolitan.  Canadians have fought in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq (after the expulsion of the Americans), and Syria and none of those turned out great.  Ukraine is pretty safe for us, but if say China attacked Taiwan a Liberal or Tory government might do something foolish.

I wonder if Prince Charles' trip to Canada is preparation for Liz's death?  Reinforce monarchist sentiment in advance?

403

General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: May Pub: Thursday 19th?

« on: May 11, 2022, 06:35:34 AM »

Having an income is better than the alternative!  And its about the only thing I do in a typical week where I talk to other living people face to face.  I had a job interview for a postdoc on 3 May and I am starting to have energy to apply for things locally which would pay a living wage.

404

General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: May Pub: Thursday 19th?

« on: May 10, 2022, 12:23:02 AM »

I am provisionally available then (depends on when I am wanted at work).

405

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: UK Politics 2022

« on: May 08, 2022, 04:12:46 AM »

In Northern Ireland, are unionists advocates of union with the rest of Ireland (and separation from union with the UK)?

Glad to see someone sticking it to the Tories.