korin43

Karma: 587

korin43 24 Feb 2021 4:23 UTC
2 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: How can I protect my bank account from large, surprise withdrawals?
In the US, “postpaid” mobile phone bills where you use your phone and then get charged for your usage are the most common, but if you’re worried about surprise bills, you can do prepaid billing instead, in which case instead of being extended potentially-surprising amount of credit, the expensive thing you’re trying to do just doesn’t work. They also usually make it easy to add more money to your account in case you really do want to do something like expensive international roaming.

korin43 22 Feb 2021 20:39 UTC
6 points
on: How can I protect my bank account from large, surprise withdrawals?
I think there’s two pieces of this that really deserve separate answers:

How can you set things up so that if you get hit with legitimate huge charges, you can handle it without all the money in your checking account disappearing?

Put everything on a credit card. This is US-specific since I don’t know the details in other countries, but if you pay off your balance every month, this generally won’t cost you anything. In some cases, companies will charge you a higher amount to pay with a credit card (since it costs them more). You can mitigate this in part by using a card that gives you cash back or points. Beyond that, I would just treat this as the cost of insurance.

The benefits of this are:
1. You can pay the charge off over time (although you’ll also have interest payments)
2. If you declare bankruptcy, you might not have to pay the entire thing
3. If the charge is actually fraudulent, it’s trivial to reverse it
If you have the option, you can also turn off auto-pay. This will leave you the ability to put the charge on a credit card later, but you may also be able to negotate lower payment with the original company. For example, auto-pay for hospital bills would be a terrible idea because you can use the risk of bankruptcy as leverage to make the hospital either reduce your bill, or let you pay it over time without interest.

How do you avoid getting hit with legitimate huge charges?

I think the answer is:
1. Choose fixed-cost contracts over variable-cost where possible (unlimited or subscription plans)
2. If you make a variable-cost contract, ensure there’s a limit to how high it can go (high deductable health insurance, anything with a maximum price)
3. If you can’t get a limit on the contract itself, try to limit risk some other way (buy third-party insurance, like with health insurance)
In the case of Griddy, the trigger to wonder if you’re exposing yourself to more risk than you wanted it that they’re passing on variable “wholesale rates”. Similar things that should trigger your risk instinct are variable rate loans and overage fees.

I’m not sure if there’s a general purpose way to avoid this, besides inspecting every contract you pay, but you could try to find general-purpose insurance. There’s a thing called “umbrella insurance” which protects you from liability risk in general (assuming you’re found liable for something but you didn’t do it on purpose). There may be other financial products that insure against even more general risks. It’s worth noting that the value of these depends on how much money you actually have though, since bankruptcy law caps your risk(at worst) at all of your money*, so it’s umbrella insurance isn’t worth it if you don’t have very much money.

korin43 22 Feb 2021 19:52 UTC
1 point
in reply to: ForensicOceanography’s comment on: Heliocentrism in the ancient era

extract the quadrupole term from a painful integral

I’m not math-y enough to understand what this means. What would an ancient Greek scientist see in the tides that they couldn’t attribute to effects of the moon or sun (keeping in mind that they don’t know the masses of either of those objects)?

korin43 21 Feb 2021 1:30 UTC
2 points
on: Heliocentrism in the ancient era
Wouldn’t the tides work the same way if the Earth was stationary with the sun and moon orbitting it?

korin43 19 Feb 2021 17:53 UTC
4 points
in reply to: ryan_b’s comment on: The Glory System: A Model For Moral Currency And Distributed Self-Moderation
enforcing conformity is the entire precept underlying a system of law for punishment. In general, why would a more variable basis of punishment lead to more consistent outcomes?

This question makes me wonder what you think the benefits of a system of law are at all. If it’s fine for any random person to punish you based on their personal opinion of good and bad, then why have standardized laws enforced by third-parties?

My answer is:
- Having standardized laws lets people actually know what the rules are, instead of having to guess for each individual they interact
- Having standardized laws ensures you have rules that are consistent (i.e. I don’t have to worry about Group A punishing me for doing x and Group B punishing me for doing not-x)
- Having the laws enforced by a third-party helps to avoid bias (i.e. it’s bad for the alleged-victim and judge to be the same person)
- Having standardized laws enforced by a third party seems to reduce cycles of violence (Group A hurts group B which hurts group A to get back at them..)
The proposed currency seems to lose these benefits by effectively importing violence into the currency. Note that you can already use any currency the way the OP proposes, by paying someone to break into your target’s bank account and rob them), but that’s illegal for good reason.

korin43 17 Feb 2021 3:56 UTC
9 points
on: How poor is US vaccine response by comparison to other countries?
Under evidence for #5, the US preordered a large portion of the world’s supply of mRNA vaccines for the first half of this year. The EU isn’t having trouble with approval or distribution of these vaccines because they can’t get them anyway.

Also under probably-#5, the US is sitting on tens of millions of AZ vaccines and waiting for approval, but:
- Most countries don’t have tens of millions of doses of known-good vaccines sitting around
- Most countries don’t have a large supply of the even better mRNA vaccines
Basically, the US did so well on the planning ahead/throwing money at it phase (at least compared to the even worse planning in most countries) that we have a good supply of vaccines despite doing really badly on the “actually using everything available” part.

korin43 14 Feb 2021 3:22 UTC
4 points
on: Five examples
I really need to pay attention so I can give examples of why I like type checkers, but it’s always hard to remember in the moment. I’m not sure how to remind myself to do it but I’ll make a note to try to watch for this for a few days.

korin43 14 Feb 2021 1:23 UTC
1 point
in reply to: canaveroe’s comment on: The dangers of digital vaccines

Nothing about what I described would be illegal, per se. It’s their vaccine, if they want small but specific change from batch to batch, i’m not sure that would be illegal.

It’s illegal for Moderna to add slightly more vaccine than expected to a vial without permission from the FDA. I guarantee that changing the contents of the vaccine without telling anyone is illegal.

korin43 12 Feb 2021 17:42 UTC
1 point
in reply to: canaveroe’s comment on: The dangers of digital vaccines

We can’t tell your age all that easily from a blood sample

Also I suspect it’s easier and more accurate to directly get an age range from a blood sample by looking at things like NAD levels than to determine if the immune system reacts to a specific protein.

korin43 12 Feb 2021 17:39 UTC
1 point
in reply to: canaveroe’s comment on: The dangers of digital vaccines
I still don’t think there’s enough motive for anyone to do this:
1. Because crime scenes will have more information left in them. We can’t tell your age all that easily from a blood sample, but if your vaccinated with something suitable for your age range...
For this to be useful, you’d have to:
1. Let the police and justice system in on the conspiracy, which makes it almost impossible to keep quiet
2. Somehow convince courts that this obviously-illegal data collection is admissable in court
Even if you do that, it’s unclear how useful it is for detectives to know that a blood sample came from someone who is or isn’t over 65 years old or someone who was probably a healthcare worker in January 2021.

And then you’ve only answered “Why would the police want this?” and not “Why would Moderna’s executive team volunteer to go to jail forever to make this happen?” Even if courts decide that allowing this as evidence is in the greater good, there’s no chance the people who made it happen will avoid going to prison for injecting millions of people with a non-FDA-approved drug. Why would they do that?
1. obviously being the spike protein being present on your cell surfaces is like an interacellular backdoor. But that isn’t my area of expertiese at all, just pure speculation on my part :)
I think the mRNA vaccines only provide the desired proteins for a short time, since they have no way to replicate themselves. I also don’t think making “the spike protein present on your cell surfaces” is an accurate description of what they do, but this is also not my area of expertise.

Even assume these did create a way to target biological warfare at people over 65 and/or people who were healthcare workers in January 2021, it’s again unclear to me why the founders of Moderna and everyone else who has studied the effects of this vaccine would be willing to go to prison forever to do that.

korin43 11 Feb 2021 23:26 UTC
8 points
on: The dangers of digital vaccines
You make an interesting argument that this is theoretically possible to do, but the big question is “Why would anyone bother?”

korin43 6 Feb 2021 23:49 UTC
1 point
on: O2 Curve Review: Well Worth the Money
Are you able to talk normally in it? The pictures make the lower jaw fit look really awkward.

korin43 5 Feb 2021 17:29 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Jayson_Virissimo’s comment on: Making Vaccine
I think it just puts you on the map.

korin43 5 Feb 2021 3:45 UTC
7 points
on: Making Vaccine
FYI, there’s a map of people working on this that you can add yourself to for coordination:

https://radvac.org/researchers-map/

korin43 27 Jan 2021 17:07 UTC
7 points
in reply to: Alexander Nmn’s comment on: How is Cryo different from Pascal’s Mugging?
Isn’t that even more true for religions with an afterlife? I think very few cryonics people think they have a 100% chance of being revived, but a lot of religious people do.

korin43 25 Jan 2021 16:26 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Leaky Delegation: You are not a Commodity
I think there’s three levels of this. At all levels, you need to optimize for hardiness and pest resistence, but on the flavor/durability scale:
1. If you grow the tomatoes yourself, you can optimize strongly for flavor, since the tomatoes just need to be durable enough to be hand-picked and then immediately cooked
2. If you grow tomatoes on an industrial scale for tomato sauce, you need enough durability to survive being picked and processed by machines, but they don’t need to survive weeks of transportation
3. If you grow tomatoes on an industrial scale to be sold in the produce section, you need to go even farther with durability to survive the initial picking step and weeks of sitting around.
So I would expect high quality industrial tomato sauce to taste better than home-made tomato sauce made from standard grocery store tomatoes, but for home-made tomato sauce made from home-grown tomatoes to taste significantly better.

korin43 25 Jan 2021 4:41 UTC
4 points
on: Leaky Delegation: You are not a Commodity

The tomatoes are peeled either by immersion in a caustic solution (requiring dye to compensate for the loss of color), or by subjecting them to a sequence of scalding and physical trauma until the skin falls off. The long storage times require either preservatives or pasteurization.

I can’t speak for the caustic solution, but the rest of this sounds pretty standard for making tomato sauce (blanching, peeling, adding salt, and cooking).

I suspect the biggest problem with industrial tomato sauce is the very first step: Growing tomatoes that are chosen for their durability instead of flavor.

korin43 22 Jan 2021 16:34 UTC
7 points
on: What if we all just stayed at home and didn’t get covid for two weeks?
This makes me wish we could do experiments with alternate lockdown strategies, like: Instead of having things open at 1/4th capacity, we have them open at 100% capacity and every few weeks they’re all closed for a week.

This wouldn’t work perfectly and you’d inevitably miss people every time, but “everyone gets a week off every 6 weeks” seems way easier to get buy-in for than everything being mostly closed endlessly.

It would be better for parents, since they would be off of work the same week their kids don’t have school, and it would be predictable.

It would be better for businesses, since demand would move the week before and after the scheduled lockdown.

It’s unclear if it would work well enough, since you might just end up with huge cycles of infection rates dropping for a week and then jumping all the way back up as everyone starts singing at bars the week after, but it seems worth a try.

korin43 9 Jan 2021 20:44 UTC
5 points
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: COVID-19: home stretch and fourth wave Q&A
It seems to matter a lot how crowded the store is, but for trips to our local Whole Foods this seems way too pessimistic. People mostly don’t talk, stand somewhat far apart, and don’t clump up in groups. The riskiest single interaction is probably talking to the cashier, but you don’t do that for the full 30 minutes.

My estimate is more like: https://www.microcovid.org/https://www.microcovid.org/?distance=sixFt&duration=30&interaction=oneTime&personCount=2&riskProfile=average&setting=indoor&subLocation=US_08069&theirMask=basic&topLocation=US_08&voice=silent&yourMask=n95

korin43 7 Jan 2021 20:48 UTC
3 points
on: COVID-19: home stretch and fourth wave Q&A
Can someone provide sources for the implied level of risk for going to the store? I was under the impression that large, uncrowded supermarkets are mostly safe if you wear a mask (especially an N-95 equivalent). What’s the remaining risk? Is this a taking-your-mask-off-wrong thing, or maybe getting COVID in your eyes?

korin43

How can you set things up so that if you get hit with legitimate huge charges, you can handle it without all the money in your checking account disappearing?

How do you avoid getting hit with legitimate huge charges?