Avram Levitter

"Можно быть реалистом / И при этом оставаться оптимистом." -Псой Короленко "It's possible to be a realist / And at the same time be an optimist." -Psoy Korolenko

Remembering that it's noon on Monday and that the new EconTalk episode should be out is consistently a highlight of my week.

@EconTalker It's interesting that decrease in missiles per day adds to the uncertainty, not lowers it. If they were staying steady, we'd all brace for a long war. But instead, we have to calibrate our expectation of how back to normal we can be to what we each predict the danger will be.

What comes next? We are now two weeks into the war with Iran and here in Israel we have settled into one routine while being unable to settle into another. The routine we've settled into is we've organized our lives around being close to a bomb shelter. This is not hard to do. And when we need to get to a bomb shelter, it's a 15-20 minute inconvenience. That inconvenience is a little bigger when it's at 5:10 am like it was this morning, but even that is not a big thing. The routine we haven't settled into is realizing how uncertain the future is. How will the war turn out? Will Iran be declawed somewhat permanently or is this just buying time--a delay in their ability to acquire nuclear capability and a dent in their financial ability to arm their proxies? When will Israelis be able to easily leave the country for work or play and return? And some of us find our daily lives more restricted than just the need to be near a bomb shelter--we're not sure when we can start face-to-face classes at Shalem College, for example. Right now, we've decided to plan on after Passover and we're adding an extra week or so to the second semester but even that start date after Passover is uncertain. On the military issues I would say there are more things we don't know than we do know. Most of what is passing for commentary or analysis here on X is uninformed. Those who know don't say, those who say don't know. We (the unwashed masses who post here) don't really know how the Strait of Hormuz is going to go. We don't really know what Trump and Netanyahu agree on and disagree on for an end game. We don't really know what is happening on the ground in Iran and what might move that forward. I very much doubt that the rest of the war, whatever its length, will be just more bombing of more things in Iran until Israel or the US loses the will to continue. I suspect there is something else on the table, but I don't know what it is. We will have to wait to find out and that is another level of uncertainty. Patience is a virtue I am trying to practice. Trying to write and read more while I have this quiet time that is not really quiet but is not work as usual.

@PDXVictoria Most recently: the industrialists. You had 40% clout and you couldn't even get Laissez Faire passed!

Ahoy Victorians! We return with another question today; Who is the villain in your current playthrough?

@ILBaseball Are these going to be livestreamed anywhere?

Israel Baseball is back! We play exhibition games in Jupiter and Port St. Lucie before heading to Miami for the main event. Here's our schedule:

@AmitSegal My only question is: is that a @SapirJournal jacket? And how do I get one for myself?

In Israel, I’m often asked how I get to the TV studio so fast. Many of you know I’m an Orthodox Jew, which means that from sundown on Friday until the stars come out on Saturday, I observe Shabbat: no electricity, no work, and definitely no driving. I don’t live at the studio—and yet every Saturday night I appear on Channel 12 just after Shabbat ends. Here’s what’s been happening behind the scenes:

@BaronDestructo I don't think so, but I think it depends on the kind of show. How much are they expecting every episode to move the plot forward that they need so much setup?

Be honest. Are you less likely to check out a show if its pilot/premiere episode is more than an hour long?

@BaronDestructo I also miss shows that had full seasons with only a handful of large plot-movers and plenty of smaller plots. And filler. Some of the best episodes of TV of all time were filler episodes.

I prefer shows that repeatedly spoon feed me their plots as if I were a time traveling narcoleptic imbecile from the 17th century experiencing film and television for the first time.

@BaronDestructo It's weird, though: when I look at the list of individual episodes, there are so many great ones. But there isn't as strong of a cohesive "season's story" here and I thought several of the episodes were in Season 2, not 3.

@BaronDestructo Season 3. I didn't find the Harcesis Child plot to be all that compelling, although I do like that it set up Daniel's Ascension arc which went well with the Anubis arc.

What was your least favorite season of Stargate: SG-1 and why?

@azforeman Lucky. All I get with my programming skills is "can you fix my computer?"

@PhilSustainable How does concrete rank against these (in both categories)?

🏡🔍 When it comes to earthquake resistance, both wood and steel frames have their perks! 🌲 Wood: Lighter, flexible, and cost-effective; can absorb shocks well with proper design. 🛠️ Steel: Stronger, more durable, and highly ductile; great for energy absorption. Fire risk tho…

yes i have created my own virtual machine with its own assembly language to implement my own linked lists for the next video

@JackRhysider You joke, but just the other week, I needed to replace an AC adapter. The kicker is that despite saving several over the years, none of them were the right voltage. Who makes a 5v charger these days that doesn't take some form of USB?!

And this is why they call it spin-locking!

I have a little dreidel, With no progress guaruntee So with some multithreading Busy-waits for eternity!

I have a little dreidel It's running on Android It's tracking my location Do you think I'm paranoid?

I built a little dreidel out of Assembly I forgot one tiny JMP command and now it spins infinitely.

@sergeyager WotC doesn't seed the packs. Instead, they specific seeded Serge.

Hey friends, I just opened this and have no idea what it is. What am I looking at?

@petecordell @__phantomderp Downside is that the virtuality of methods will define whether the class has a vtable pointer or not, so you'd need visibility of all methods to be able to allocate the object.

@__phantomderp Often think header pain could be reduced by composable classes. eg: class [[data]] Foo { int a; }; class [[public_methods]] Foo { int get_a(); }; class [[private_methods]] Foo {???}; Methods parts need visibility of data part. Also: class [[data]] [[public_methods]] Foo {...};

Every time I try to digest C++ Modules, I just have to stop. There's literally nothing about this thing that's intuitive or makes sense to me. Is it just me? I know I'm dumb as a brick, but.

@nothings The data?