jan's stuff

Alles wat Jan bezig houdt, interesseert en irriteert... en ook een beetje onzin...

dinsdag, maart 26, 2024

General Average: Navigating Hidden Maritime Costs and Cargo Delays

People are surprised this morning to learn that it's the companies with cargo on the ship that crashed into the bridge that will pay the damages, not the ship owner or ship operator. That's because of ancient maritime law (older than the US constitution) called "General Average" designed to prevent sailors from fighting over which cargo to toss overboard, and instead to focus on saving the ship:

https://www.flexport.com/blog/general-average-navigating-hidden-maritime-costs-and-cargo-delays/

maandag, maart 25, 2024

How to learn a new language


I've always wanted to learn other languages. 

It just looks so incredibly cool in a James Bond movie when he whips out a short conversation in, Arabic or Spanish. I want to be that cool. Learning the language is just a way to greater coolness. Also some friends of mine speak Spanish with each other I would pay a lot (of money, not time, more about this later) to be able to listen in and understand their conversations 🤔 

Come to think of it, I did learn a language next to my mother tongue. I'm writing in that language to you now. You see, I'm native Dutch speaker, and I consider myself fluent-ish in English.  

So here is the deal: I want to learn a whole new way of talking, called Spanish, to steal a line from "Cards Against Humanity."  I've already tried about one full year of Duo-lingo. I think I even payed for it, just to buy streak-unfreezers, or whatever it was called. Anyways, I now now a bunch of words, but since I never get to practice I still don't really know how to have an actual conversation, how to form my own sentences on the fly…

Recently I found an app on my phone. I must have installed it myself once-upon-a-time, but I install lots of app out of curiosity and promptly forget what they are good for. So anyways, I found this app on my phone called Language Transfer. I have followed the first few lessons, and I quickly realised that I can't do this while ironing or vacuuming. I really need to be focussed to learn. 

On HN I found a reference to another similar looking method to learn new languages, called "The Michel Thomas Method." I've not tried this one out yet, but maybe I will.

The thing with learning a new language, any language, is that it takes an awful lot of time. I've only really learned English by accident. Whenever a classmate gave me a CD with a DIVX movie but with no subtitles on it, I would have to watch that movie in the original dubbing. I've learned English by watching movies, pausing and replaying sentences that I didn't fully understand and looking of the difficult words. 

Maybe I should just watch some telenovelas in their original Spanish to really learn this language too?

 

vrijdag, maart 15, 2024

Tracemaster 150 - GPS Tracker - Tracemaster


Nu auto's, aanhangwagens en fietsen steeds meer "verdwijnen" leek het mij interessant om dit aan te schaffen.

Niet dat het helpt voorkomen, maar het kan er wel voor zorgen dat ik nog eens een blog post kan schrijven over hoe ik de politie liet zien waar mijn gestolen auto was, en hoe ze toen nog niet ingrepen 🫣




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zondag, maart 10, 2024

maandag, februari 12, 2024

Bitcoin Energy Use and Externalities


There is a lot of nonsense going around about the amount of energy and the kind of energy that Bitcoin mining is using. 

So see the energy usage as wasteful. Others see it as an opportunity to pay for energy projects in very poor locations and an opportunity to make money on methane reduction. 

To have a healthy discussion all sides need to be aware of the facts. This website is a helpful resource for some of those hard needed datapoints. 

dinsdag, oktober 24, 2023

EA’s reasons not to have kids.



Although the latest Michael Lewis book "Going Infinite" seems to me to be his least well written one, it does give several good quotes. As per "the Zvi":

"A lot of EAs chose not to have kids," said George. "It's because of the impact on their own lives. They believe that having kids takes away from their ability to have impact on the world." After all, in the time it took to raise a child to become an effective altruist, you could persuade some unknowably large number of people who were not your children to become effective altruists. "It feels selfish to have a kid. The EA argument for having a kid is that kid equals happiness and happiness equals increased productivity. If they can get there in their head, then maybe they have a kid." (2,261)

So people who practice Effective Altruism (basically a religion for non-believers) have a very weak reason not to have children. 

I can personally think of some much better reasons not to procreate (in no particular order):

What is your favorite reason not to have kids before Armageddon






What was going on in SBF’s mind?



If you've always wanted to know how somebody who thinks himself the best wicked smart but can't feel much empathy thinks, then reading up on SBF might be interesting. 


What surprised Sam, once he himself had unlimited sums of money, was how slowly rich people and corporations had adapted to their new political environment. The US government exerted massive influence on virtually everything under the sun and maybe even a few things over it. In a single four-year term, a president, working with Congress, directed roughly $15 trillion in spending. And yet in 2016, the sum total of spending by all candidates on races for the presidency and Congress came to a mere $6.5 billion. "It just seems like there isn't enough money in politics," said Sam. "People are underdoing it. The weird thing is that Warren Buffett isn't giving two billion dollars a year."