It's usually the one I update too when I see a related demographic story.  I was just pointing out that it now has almost a dozen years of history and updates. Which is cool.

It made me want to look up the Terminator thread and compare. Back from traveling tonight so maybe I'll look then. I have a couple saved items from my RSS feed for that one, but too hard to pull them out on my phone. Plus I've been too tired. I climbed 13 of the last 16 non-travel days. Yesterday was a 25-hour travel day (smooth and otherwise easy though)

And how would you haul this local DB around?

That is, isn't the point of this that it is networked and can ID streets and people and comparison shop and so on and so on? So at that point don't you need a whole data center?

Or do you imagine anonymized, read-only network access with all PII saved to a small local DB?

Or are you just thinking it would be nice if magic occurred and you could get all that locally? In which case, please invent the Star Trek medical scanner first!

It's funny because my nephew was racing to reverse engineer his car firmware under the theory that we were in a brief window where the LLMs were finally up to the task but not yet crippled to prevent them from being used that way.

That was only a few weeks ago. I'll find out when I get home how much progress he made before getting shut down.

Side note: this thread is 11.5 years old.

No wonder I'm surprised when related topics come up and people don't know what I'm talking about. Recently there was some climate change topic somewhere and someone commented, "Nobody is talking about population control," and I thought, "Buddy, you missed the memo and the memo before that and the memo before that."

On the landing page

https://www.eulerbloom.com/art/looking-down-yosemite-valley-california-albert-bierstadt

A print of that hangs in our rental. Very cool

> Japanese

That's interesting, and the bit about medieval Europe is news to me.

We often talk about species that thrive on human proximity (raccoons, deer, bears, coyotes, ravens and crows, plants that like disturbed soil like mulleins and lupines, barn owls, house sparrows whose very names tell the story) and ones that don't (beavers, mountain lions, great grey owls, most wetlands species since we love to drain them).

Anyway, it's an interesting idea that there is a human density that leads to max diversity and that density is not zero.

My backyard neighbor keeps warning me about one-way doors in Medicare decisions. Gem says..

=======

In Medicare, almost no enrollment choice is completely permanent, but several structural decisions function as "one-way doors" because they lock in irreversible financial penalties or create medical situations that are practically impossible to undo. [1] (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hxG4SMtiC8g)
When people talk about irreversible Medicare decisions, they are usually referring to these three critical pitfalls:

1. Missing the Initial Medigap Window (The 46-State Trap)

When you first enroll in Medicare Part B at age 65 or older, you get a one-time, 6-month Medigap Open Enrollment Period. During this window, you have a guaranteed right to buy any Medicare Supplement (Medigap) plan with no health questions asked. [1] (https://cahealthadvocates.org/medicare-advantage/when-you-have-guaranteed-issue-rights-to-switch-from-a-medicare-advantage-plan-to-a-medigap-policy/), [2] (https://www.healthline.com/health/medicare/switching-from-medicare-advantage-to-medigap), [3] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixq9Id0w9OA)
• Why it is practically unrevocable: If you bypass Medigap during this window (either by choice or by enrolling in a Medicare Advantage plan for more than a year), you lose your guaranteed issue right in 46 states. If you develop a health condition later and try to buy a Medigap plan, private insurers can use medical underwriting to deny you coverage or charge astronomical premiums. For most seniors, this effectively locks them out of traditional Medigap forever. [1] (https://www.themadisonpartners.com/8-questions-before-switching-to-original-medicare/), [2] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLMdGi_HZ6s&t=117), [3] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixq9Id0w9OA)

2. Missing the Part B or Part D Enrollment Deadlines

If you do not sign up for Medicare Part B (medical insurance) or Part D (prescription drugs) when you are first eligible—and you do not have "creditable" coverage from a current employer—you can enroll later, but you face permanent financial penalties.
• The Part B Penalty: Your monthly premium goes up by 10% for each full 12-month period you could have had Part B but didn't. This penalty sticks with you for life.
• The Part D Penalty: You are charged 1% of the national base beneficiary premium per month for every month you went without creditable coverage. Like Part B, this surcharge is permanent and added to your premium every single month you have a drug plan.

3. Choosing Plan F or C (If Eligible After 2020)

Federal law changed the rules for Medigap Plan F and Plan C. Anyone who became newly eligible for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020, is legally prohibited from buying these plans.
• Why it is unrevocable: If you were eligible before 2020 and currently hold a Plan F or Plan C, you are allowed to keep it. However, if you ever drop that specific plan or switch to a newer plan design (like Plan G), you can never get Plan F or C back. The decision to leave those legacy plans is entirely permanent.

4. Overlooking High-Deductible "One-Way Doors"

Enrolling in a high-deductible Medigap option (like High-Deductible Plan G) can sometimes be a one-way street. While you can switch plans during open enrollment windows, moving from a high-deductible plan to a standard, full-coverage plan down the road usually triggers medical underwriting. If you develop a chronic illness while on a high-deductible plan, you may be permanently locked into paying those high out-of-pocket costs because no company will underwrite you to switch to a comprehensive plan. [1] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLMdGi_HZ6s&t=117), [2] (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hxG4SMtiC8g)
If you are weighing a specific choice right now, let me know:
• Are you turning 65 soon, or are you already enrolled?
• Which state do you live in? (States like NY, CT, MA, and CA have special rules that alter these traps).
I can map out exactly which choices are safe to test and which ones you'll be locked into.
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Launch centers.

But going back to the "bomber mafia" before WWII, a big one is water infrastructure. I forget the number but it was something like seven direct hit bombs would destroy NYC water infrastructure and within days thereafter the city would descend into chaos and create major distraction from any war effort. Multiplied by a dozen cities and you cripple a country.

Such bombings would violate the Geneva Convention so instead they claimed to be targeting military production and then carpet bombed the cities of Germany and Japan. And France. I was talking to a French guy who said that more people were killed in his town in NE France by Allied bombers than by the Nazis.

> when you use Target's app with location permissions

Which is probably common among shoppers loyal enough to have the app, but not loyal enough to always shop the same store.

> Louisiana
>> Landry

There are no solutions. Still, it wasn't clear whether this is a "windmills kill birds" thing or a "windmills kill coal miners" thing

Three hour round trip to pay my water bill in person. No credit card option.  We're not quite there yet.

The county has added ACH for property tax. Credit card has a 3.5% fee (so $250 extra).

> debit

I generally avoid it. A credit card with a low credit limit would be better.

I still think it will require a complete makeover of the home building process before a robot can replace electricians and plumbers.

We may see some sort of merging where robots get better and construction methods and home designs adapt to take advantage of that

I thought it previously required a plugin

Well, if you can't bank online and you can't mail checks, do you have to deliver a truckload of chickens every time you need to pay a bill?

BTW - increasingly using the Revolut debit card which, yes, is connected to my bank, but it at least adds a minimally-funded abstraction layer between the merchant and my bank.

Not fat off from winter in Vermont