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Cake day: December 26th, 2023

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  • Bribery: SNYDER v. UNITED STATES

    Kavanaugh writing for the majority:

    The question in this case is whether §666 also makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities—for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos, or the like—that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act. The answer is no.

    The official act was a $1.1 million contract. The “token of appreciation” was a $13,000 check. At trial it was argued that the payment was for consulting services, but presumably the jury did not believe that.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf

    Presidential immunity: TRUMP v. UNITED STATES

    At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity. At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient

    The court takes a very broad view of core constitutional conduct

    In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives

    Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.

    But it nevertheless contends that a jury could “consider” evidence concerning the President’s official acts “for limited and specified purposes,” and that such evidence would “be admissible to prove … " The Government’s position is untenable in light of the separation of powers principles we have outlined.

    Like everyone else, the President is subject to prosecution in his unofficial capacity. But unlike anyone else, the President is a branch of government, and the Constitution vests in him sweeping powers and duties.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf


  • For vaccines, we shouldn’t even be dispensing them at cost. Vaccinations are the second most cost effective public health intervention ever, beaten only by clean drinking water.

    In purely financial terms, the cost of vaccinations are lower than the average cost to the US tax payer of someone getting sick. The public service of people not getting sick is a nice bonus. As is reducing the chances of this becoming another Covid style economic catastrophe (plus, again, the public service of protecting your citizens)


  • Regardless of justice, this type of lawsuit isn’t in the interest of any reasonable world order.

    They are suing sovereign countries for assisting in an attack on Israel. In a US federal court. With no treaties backing the suit; just a law passed unilaterally by the US.

    That is not the way international law works at all. By the logic, Peru could pass a law allowing it’s citizens to sue the US because they have family that took a vacation in mexico where they were shot by a US gun.

    This should be viewed in context of the US’s refusal to join the ICC, and the “Hague Invasion Act” (American Service-Members’ Protection Act) that authotizes unbounded military force against the ICC if it acts against anyone working for the US or a US ally. As well as a bill passed in the house attempting to sanction the ICC for its move against Israeli leadership.

    The entire theory behind being able to have such a lawsuit in a US federal court is US imperialism.




  • In addition to the raw compute power, the HP laptop comes with a:

    • monitor
    • keyboard/trackpad
    • charger
    • windows 11
    • active cooling system
    • enclosure

    I’ve been looking for a lapdock [0], and the absolute low-end of the market goes for over $200, which is already more expensive than the hp laptop despite spending no money on any actual compute components.

    Granted, this is because lapdocks are a fairly niche product that are almost always either a luxury purchase (individual users) or a rounding error (datacenter users)

    [0] Keyboard/monitor combo in a laptop form factor, but without a built in computer. It is intended to be used as an interface to an external computer (typically a smartphone or rackmounted server).




  • At a $188 price point. An additional 4GB of memory would probably add ~$10 to the cost, which is over a 5% increase. However, that is not the only component they cheaped out on. The linked unit also only has 64GB of storage, which they should probably increase to have a usable system …

    And soon you find that you just reinvented a mid-market device instead of the low-market device you were trying to sell.

    4GB of ram is still plenty to have a functioning computer. It will not be as capable of a more powerful computer, but that comes with the territory of buying the low cost version of a product.






  • The downpayment requirements are much looser now then they used to be. Pretty much anyone in the US can get as low as 3 to 3.5% down, which means the down payment can easily be less than all the other home buying expenses (closing cost, inspection, title insurance, loan origination, moving, transfer taxes, …). You also typically have a month before you need to make your first principle repayment, which helps offset the down payment.

    Veterans, active service members, and people buying in qualified rural areas can get 0 down mortgages.

    Depending on where you live, there might be further assistance available. Around here, the county offers (means tested) down-payment assistance loans that cover 100% the minimum down payment, and has an interest rate that is at least 2% lower than that of the main loan. They also wave all transfer taxes for all first time buyers.


  • For now. Unfourtuantly, that is not the way wars work.

    First of all, Hezbolla is part of the Lebanese government (and has a more powerful military than Lebanon proper), so the chance of Lebanon supporting an Israeli campaign against Hezbolla is effectively nil.

    Second of all, Israel is clearly on an escalatory ladder since October 7, and has shown no interest in getting off. The conflict between Israel and Hezbolla has been a thing since Hezbollas founding, and has escalated to wars before. However, this latest round of conflict is clearly an escallation of the war in Gaza. An escallation that both Israel and Hezbolla keep poking at.

    Unless Israel changes its stance, this is not going to end with a war in Lebanon. Remember Iran? Back in April, Israel launched a largely unprovoked attack on Iran in Syria, killing a fairly high ranking member of Iran’s military (along with others, including some Syrian civilians).

    In addition to being a potential war crime (they bombed a diplomatic building, although there is an argument that the details make it allowed under intetnational law), this was also simply an act of war against Syria and Iran. 2 countries that Israel is not at war with, and which are clearly not interested in going to war.

    Syrua let Israel off with a finger wagging. Iran let Israel off with a telegraphed missile strike that they knew had a high chance of being completely intercepted. Or at least they tried to, But Israel couldn’t take the win, and so launched another strike against Iran. Similar to Iran, Israel calculated this one to be limited. However, unlike Israel, Iran took the opportunity to back off.

    Netenyahu specifically has been trying to start a war with Iran for decades, and is now actively escalating with Iranian proxies.

    From the US perspective, this is frustrating because this is exactly what we have been warning Israel about, and exactly what Israel has been ignoring us about. You could argue that October 7 and the subsequent war are a consequence of decades of Israeli policy combided with a tactical/intelligence failure allowing the specific attack to succeed.

    However the current round of escallation with Hezbolla is a direct and predictable consequence of the strategic decisions that Israel has made in responce to October 7. Strategic decisions that the entire world had cautioned them against. Strategic decisions that senior IDF leaders have admitted cannot possibly achieve their objectives.

    When this escalates into a full scale regional war with Iran, that will also have been a consequence of Israeli strategic decisions. And the US will again be asked to bail them out




  • Blaise Pascal is famous for 2 things:

    1. Pascal’s triangle. This describes how to expand expresions of the form (a+b)^n as well as to compute how many ways there are to pick k objects out of a set of n (ignoring order.

    This triangle is computed by starting with 1 at the tip, then having each element be the some of its 2 parents (except the diagonal edges with only one parent, which remains as 1)

    1. Pascal’s wager. This is a theological argument for a belief in god that goes “if you believe and god doesn’t exist, nothing happens. If you don’t believe and he does exist, you suffer for eternity. The logical choice is therefore to believe”

    The natural conclusion is therefore to believe in all gods. If procelatizing happens in just the right way, and no one realizes people are talking about the same god, you end up with a triangle of polytheists, where the number of gods they believe in is given by Pascal’s triangle.

    Edit: gid -> god


  • Line item vetoes are one thing (which I oppose, but can understand).

    The veto in question turns “2024-25” into “2425”

    Looking the the Wisconsin constitution, there seems to be 2 relevant sections:

    The first is the authority for partial vetoes.

    Appropriations may be approved in whole or in part by the chief executive officer.

    In my opinion, this already does not authorize, the type of creative vetoing the governor tried.

    However, the constitution goes on to clarify:

    In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill, and may not create a new sentence by combining parts of 2 or more sentences of the enrolled bill.

    It would take an obtusely literal reading of these provisions to allow for striking individual digits and puncuation marks to create new numbers.

    https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/constitution/wi_unannotated


  • They probably don’t do grocery shopping or pay attention that closely to their household finances. My guess would be most of them have a spouse who is aware of the increasing prices.

    Random anecdote time. A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with my parents and commented on how my fridge had a stupid amount of corn since the store was practically giving it away (post memorial day. They must have overestimated the holiday surge). The conversation went to how we couldn’t husk the corn in stores anymore (post covid), and my dad was adament they changed the policy to increase the weight and therefore cost.

    Except, at least around here, corn is not and has never in my life been sold by weight. He had just been in the grocery store so rarely that he does not know how corn is sold. Since they have enough income to absorb the cost, he probably wouldn’t be aware of the increase if not for hearing about inflation on the news.