Zonian: my father was born to an American family but outside the Canal Zone (Panama City). I asked my Dad whether they considered themselves Americans or Panamanians growing up. He said his parents (my grandparents) considered themselves Panamanians and that they strongly supported handing over the canal during the treaty negotiations. What was the feeling like among the “Zonians”?
We just had a family reunion of sorts in Panama and needless to say the relatives that still live there (all over the political spectrum) were not enthused by the new U.S. posture.
I was a kid when the Treaty was ratified in the Senate and when the Treaty was first implemented on October 1, 1979. As a kid it was a sad day for us. We all thought that Panama would be incapable of running the canal properly. The railroad quickly went into disrepair when Panama took over so there was some valid reasons for believing this.
In our own way we protested things. We wore shirts that said, “To Jimmy from the Canal Zone” with Gummy flipping the bird. We wrote some graffiti with slogans like “CZ Forever” and “Kiss My American Ass”. The transition was peaceful though and no violence was carried out. It took 21 years for the Treaty to be fully implemented. I came to the United States for college and stayed here in the U.S. ever since.
When I went back to Panama some years ago I could see that Panama made great progress compared to when the U.S. was there. One rabiblanco I talked to put it this way, “When you Americans left we had to grow up.” I could first hand see that we ended up stunting the political and economic progress of Panama.
The Treaty was the right thing to do. I hated it as a kid to lose my hometown and start being patrolled by the Guadia Nacional (PDF) but as an adult I see it differently.
What about the constitutional directive that the President shall ensure that the laws are faithfully executed? Congress has prescribed how agencies may issue regulations and interpretations through statutes shouldn’t these statutes control?
Article II Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America
It doesn't say "some of the executive power", nor does Article I mention anything about being able to create new executive powers vested in other entities. So if the president is the only one who has been vested with the executive power, how can a functionary of the executive promulgate a regulation that disagrees with the president? Ultimately the House can impeach and the Senate convict, possibly disqualifying them from federal office.
Right, but what is “executive power”? It is the power to put laws into effect—to execute them. And Congress writes those laws. Article 2 Section 1 does not confer power beyond what the laws provide.
And “vested” does not mean exclusive. Many U.S. laws grant executive power, including the power to promulgate regulations, to persons in the executive branch other than the president. For example, the Communications Act of 1934 creates the FCC and gives the commission the power to “perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.”[1]
There is no authority in the statute for the President to override these determinations made by the Commission.
The enumerated powers in article 2 along with the implied powers that are necessary to carry out the constitutional responsibilities of the president make up the executive power.
> Article 2 Section 1 does not confer power beyond what the laws provide.
It does not confer power beyond what is enumerated and implied within article 2 which vests those powers into a single president. Laws are subordinate to the constitution and have no way of limiting, modifying, or expanding it unless the amendment process is used.
> And “vested” does not mean exclusive.
Can there be two commander in chiefs?
> Many U.S. laws grant executive power, including the power to promulgate regulations, to persons in the executive branch other than the president.
How are they granting executive power? I see nothing in article 1 to suggest they have such a power. Congress was given explicit powers to create lower courts though, "To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court". It seems odd that the framers would forget to mention that congress can also vest executive power into entities of their own creation.
> There is no authority in the statute for the President to override these determinations made by the Commission.
So according to you argument congress can create an enabling act wherein they vest all executive power into the newly created agency head and require the president to nominate a specific person by a specific date and the president would be obliged to execute that law?
The pricing makes sense for the better brands as they have to basically make a nice wine, and then take additional steps to remove the alcohol. At least that’s what they do for the better alcohol-free Rieslings. See https://thezeroproof.com/products/buy-eins-zwei-zero-rieslin...
This is wonderful. The loving dedication to getting the details right reminds me of the engineer hobbyist that built a functional scale model of a Ferrari 312PB race car as shown on this classic Top Gear episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeUMDY01uUA
The reality is created by policy. The AMA zealously protects MDs and (Medicare-funded) fellowships as a cartel exempt from antitrust laws. Any they fight PAs and NPs tooth and nail.
He says it a few paragraphs in:
“To give a sense of how strange this is, here is the only “officially sanctioned” way to represent a multistage thermonuclear weapon, according to US Department of Energy guidance since the 1990s:
Figure 13.9, “Unclassified Illustration of a Staged Weapon
(Source: TCG-NAS-2, March 1997),” from the Nuclear Matters Handbook 2020 (Revised), published by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters.
Two circles in a box, maybe inside of a reentry vehicle. That’s it. Nothing that gives any actual sense of size, location, materials, physicality.”
If the story here is that the US DoE is now implicitly confirming common public-domain knowledge that can be found immediately on Wikipedia then sure, that's a story of minor interest. That story is nothing like the title of the blog, though!
One thing to keep in mind is that the author’s interest lies in the nature of nuclear secrecy, and not necessarily the secrets themselves. It’s a subtle distinction but I think explains why the author finds the fact that this type of diagram was officially released by a national lab interesting, even if the information has previously made its way to the public domain in other unofficial ways.
speculation can be found on Wikipedia, perhaps accurate speculation, perhaps not.
DoE contractors leaking details that confirm that speculation would indeed be a big deal, and might well save adversaries some real time and mistakes they’d otherwise make.
Unless he is actually employed in the classification process inside these agencies, he does not know everything that is officially sanctioned. It’s all guesswork, from the outside.
The best bit: They recursively reference the paper to provide proof that too many parents choose the same common names:
> For instance, a parent might anticipate the name “Kate” would be a pleasantly traditional yet unique name with only moderate popularity. They would be wrong [6].
Sketch of a more complete solution, excluding shortened forms and very foreign ones. Alternatives are in rough order of frequency.
vowel 0: E, Ye, Je, Ai. Optional and rare; Ai in particular is very rare.
consonant 1: C, K, G, Q. Mandatory; G and Q are rare.
vowel 1: a, aa, ai; optional h or gh. Mandatory. A few shortened forms use i instead.
consonant 2: t, tt, d. Almost mandatory, but a few r-centric variants lack it. There also seem to be a few
vowel 2: a, e. Optional, only valid if consonant 2 exists. In shortened forms, also i, ie, or y; this is the end.
consonant 3: r, l. Optional. Sometimes L starts a new word instead.
vowel 3: i, y, ee, ie, ii, e if no consonant 2, plus several rare vowel sequences. Almost mandatory (assuming consonant 3), but a few rare variants pack the r right next to the n.
consonant 4: n, nn, nh. Optional.
vowel 4: e, a, ey. Optional; ey is rare.
Some languages shove an s, c, x, t, k somewhere too (some of these are probably language-specific diminutives, but a few might be phoneme drift instead) ...
"Kaylee" and its variant "Kayla" should probably not be counted (despite almost fitting the pattern) since that's a compound of "Kay", adding the additional "Leigh" name.
It goes beyond that. Three of the authors have east-asian last names.
I understand that many people from east asia have a given name in their native language and an english sounding name that they often choose themselves.
If those three authors did chose their english names, then they too fall into the same category of parents who chose a variation of Katherine.
This phenomena also occurs in the transgender community; people put a lot of thought and intention choosing their new names only to wind up surrounded by other people who also landed on the same name, often for similar reasons. There's even a whole subreddit specifically for transfeminine people who are named some variation of Lily: https://www.reddit.com/r/LilyIsTrans/
If they did indeed pick those names while traveling to the US, possibly as adults, I think they’d actually really interesting cases. They’d be choosing names later than their peers, so they could see how the name game played out for their peers. Of course, they could also be peers of the parents of the other authors.
I’ve also met some folks who had English names that phonetically sounded similar to their original names. I wonder if there’s an east Asian first name that sounds like any of the versions of Katherine.
From my anecdotal experience origin is a big factor: of adults I have known to choose a name for themselves americans overwhelmingly pick unusual or ornamented names, whereas the other group (typically asian, first language has a different set of basic sounds) pick stereotypically common and plain/short names. I don't really know anyones specific thought process on the matter though, maybe I'll have to start asking for curiosities sake.
Anecdotal, of course, but the goal can be quite different for both groups.
English people choosing English baby names often want them to be relatively unique or stand out in some way. At the very least, they don't want them to be _overly_ common.
Manny people I've talked to that have chosen a name after immigrating are kind of aiming for the opposite. They want to fit in. They already feel that they stand out, and generally try and minimize that.
There's also the fact that for some groups, they're choosing the name at a time when they may not be very familiar with English names or culture, and may not have much in the way of local resources they can or feel comfortable with drawing on, so the main indication they have that they haven't chosen some absurd name is "hey, lots of people here are named that".
Not sure it's still the same scenario with today's far more connected world, but even 20 years ago you could guess with some accuracy that someone was east-Asian from their "English" name being ~50 years out of date, popularity wise.
(Para)bosons, (para)fermions, quons and other beasts in the menagerie of particle statistics, by O.W. Greenberg, D.M Greenberger, T.V. Greenbergest https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9306225 [Wally Greenberg told me that T.V. stands for 'the very']
This reminds me that I went to nautical school with someone whose last name was Schiff (German for ship) and he said that was exactly the reason he chose to go to sea.
Also remember someone a year ahead of us whose name was Dory (a small rowboat).
I'm reminded of the 'Tom Formal' that took place whilst I was at university:
> Last night, February 3rd 2011, saw 100 students and fellows all sharing the name of Tom, gather together in a record-breaking charity event in Sidney Sussex dining hall. [...] For £20, Cambridge students with the name "Tom, Thomas, Tommy (or another legitimate variation)" were able to attend a black-tie, three-course formal dinner
This is the catch: you're not naming a baby: you're naming a person; they just so happen to be a baby at the beginning when you're enjoying an early appreciation for the mel lif lu ous ness of the name ... but they're going to be an adult the vast majority of their life. Ergo, that ought to be the usage parents plan for, rather than some cute, endearing name "fitting" for an infant (for some definition of fitting).
In most cases where babies get a "cutesy" name, hopefully the parents have the self-awareness to give them the corresponding adult version as their legal name, or at least a reasonable alternative as a middle name— both give the person easier options if they want to change it up during life transitions like entering high school or going away to university.
For example, Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter is Apple Blythe Alison Martin, and she's stuck with it, being Apple Martin professionally— but it's good she had the off-ramp to be the much more conventional Blythe or Alison if she'd wanted it.
I think in the case of female names there’s so much cyclic effect to it that it’s really hard to say. I could just as easily imagine a few decades ago people saying the same thing about Melissa, Jessica, Amanda, Jennifer, Lauren, Ashley, and all the other names that were super trendy for millennial girls.
Now Ashley is 35 and pushing little Kaylee in the pram, or maybe she’s a business executive — either way, our perception has shifted that “Ashley” is now a woman not a girl. Just like how Gertrude, Beatrice, and Florence are more likely to be playing dolls at the park than bridge at the nursing home.
"we create a model which is not only tractable and clean, but also perfectly captures the real world. We then extend our investigation with numerical experiments, as well as analysis of large language model tools."
Whether family names are more differentiated depends on where you live.
The USA has a wide variety, but there are also places like Vietnam where only a handful of family names are in common use and more than 30% of people are Nguyens.
I think that makes sense both from an organizational and cultural perspective. Context usually supplies whatever information is needed for personal names so less disambiguation is required, and they are used much more so some simplicity is useful/natural consequence of human nature. Family names are used less frequently and with less context and frankly is how people distinguish their group from others. So yeah, think it checks out.
I looked into this in 2013. At that point there was a "My Clippings.txt" file stored on the kindle that was accessible as a USB storage volume when plugged in. This file stored each annotation in plain text, along with the document ID and the start and ending location of the annotation.
Trouble was, the location was in the Kindle's "Loc" format which is nontrivial (at least to me at the time) to connect to specific text in the document.
I'm sure someone's probably worked this out by now?
Sorry I failed to mention I'm aware of the "clippings.txt" setup, but I would like to be able to have it automated via the web.
Amazon doesn't expose a direct API for highlighting, and Readwise for example does a little "hack" where you use their browser extension to redirect to the Kindle highlights page and I think they just slurp up the authenticated API requests.
There are some books where if you exceed a certain number of highlights, they are not saved on the file anymore, and I’m pretty sure it also affects the web version too.
This is set as part of the DRM, so be careful that you are really saving the data you want. I went deep into a book highlighting things before I noticed this limitation.
Much of this history is also described in Michael Lewis’s book the New New Thing (2000) which profiles Clark and his various ventures. It’s really a snapshot of pre-.com crash Silicon Valley.
We just had a family reunion of sorts in Panama and needless to say the relatives that still live there (all over the political spectrum) were not enthused by the new U.S. posture.