Afforess

24 ms·

181.
by Afforess 8y ago
"First, do no harm" is not part of the hippocratic oath at all. [1] The actual line in the hippocratic oath is much more flexible: > I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider f
182.
by Afforess 8y ago
On the dark side, the real advice is to join teams where none of the engineers are supporting the manager. Ensure the manager is not a literal demon; just sidelined by engineers "who know best", and then do better. With only a tri
183.
by Afforess 8y ago
> conversations with me are always like chewing sandpaper, unless they focus on some very narrow interests of mine. Basically, that's the problem. In order to establish a repertoire, you need to have more than dense interests. It&#
184.
by Afforess 8y ago
This is why I find movements like HBD so disgusting, despite their "scientific" origins. They start with a conclusion, the justification of race, and seek evidence to prove it. Of course, they find such evidence. Anyone looking to
185.
by Afforess 8y ago
Individual property ownership should be outlawed. The perverse incentives outweigh the benefits. Private real estate is an exclusive monopoly protected by the government. Housing appreciation is particularly appalling. Rarely is it due to a
186.
by Afforess 8y ago
Ad hominem has never been a valid reason to disbelieve something. I quite enjoyed reading the report - it includes XKCD references and everything.
187.
by Afforess 8y ago
The report (not a paper) is actually written for a lay audience and very readable: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/irreproducibility_repor...
188.
by Afforess 8y ago
Correct. Many businesses ignore the poor, explicitly or implicitly. Luxury apartment price rates are often high, not because the services they offer are valuable, but because high prices exclude the classes their clientele want to avoid. Al
189.
by Afforess 8y ago
For all the improvements to Windows that have come from Microsoft thanks Nadella & co., it is still rather shocking to realize Windows has no public bug tracker, and no real way to report these issues besides screaming loudly and hoping
190.
by Afforess 9y ago
I can't tell if you're serious (Poe's Law), but very few economists find EMH to be credible. Did you even read the "Criticisms" section of that wikipedia entry?
191.
by Afforess 9y ago
Revisionist is putting it lightly. Casper sued the largest online mattress review site after it refused to favor its brands, and forced it to sell itself. The entire saga has more twists than a G.R.R. Martin novel. https://www.fa
192.
by Afforess 9y ago
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire Universal free speech is not laudable, it's suicidal. If your free speech doesn't protect you from those who want to take it away, they will win, on a long enough time horizon.
193.
by Afforess 9y ago
The US has made negative progress on sexual liberation on the whole of history. Prostitution was common and generally legal in the late 1700's and 1800's. The temperance movements in the late 1800's and early 1900's (yes
194.
by Afforess 9y ago
Effective Altruism. I discovered the charity GiveDirectly some years ago from the NPR podcast Planet Money episode that featured them. GiveDirectly is one of many charities adopting evidence based outreach, and now I follow GiveWell and it&
195.
by Afforess 9y ago
Don't do this. This is a felony in the states. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act )
196.
by Afforess 9y ago
It's worth keeping in mind that most Americans are not news-addicts and do not regularly read the news. For negative press to filter to the less-engaged public, you would need continuous press for months at a time. (This is also why it
197.
by Afforess 9y ago
I don't think this type of thinking is very productive - it's a romanticization of an ancestral past. The ancestral environment is useful for context for why things are the way they are, but it tells us nothing about the future. W
198.
by Afforess 9y ago
I'm curious why more money equals faster or better software engineering. Didn't we collectively learn from the Mythical Man Month and others that throwing people at a software problem doesn't scale? More engineers on a projec
199.
by Afforess 9y ago
My 2 cents, and possibly quite wrong: Is the ncurses packages really necessary in the minimal ubuntu image? It seems likely that curses based programs should be likely candidates for exclusion in a minimal image, as they are not usually mea
200.
by Afforess 9y ago
You're right, but I am not sure this is the end. We are entering a "streaming content desert" where every content-maker tries to make their own Netflix. Consumers will buy subscriptions to the top 3, at best. Most probably wo
201.
by Afforess 9y ago
I dislike the title here: Pain isn't necessary. The path evolution took - why pain exists makes sense - but the author's statement in the title is absurd. I can easily imagine a future where we have obsoleted pain as a communicati
202.
by Afforess 9y ago
I suspect that as we come to better understand genetics, we (as a society) are going to be more and more uncomfortable with the findings that we uncover. Physics and mathematics have made it long since clear that the universe is determinist
203.
by Afforess 9y ago
Watch out - there is a reverse bias, Parkinson's law, that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This is why Elon Musk sets absurd deadlines he rarely can meet, to resist the expansion of make-work and admin
204.
by Afforess 9y ago
AI can't help much in drug discovery (i.e lead generation) because the pharamecutical industry is suffering from Eroom's law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eroom%27s_law ). It's a play off Moore's
205.
by Afforess 9y ago
I don't like resolutions. They are lies we tell ourselves, false promises from our present self about our future self. If you actually believe you can accomplish your resolutions, you don't need a manufactured holiday, like New Y
206.
by Afforess 9y ago
This is exactly the motte and bailey argument that gets under my skin. The motte is "all media/opinions are biased", which is trivially true and easily defended, and the bailey is "this op-ed is acceptable", harder
207.
by Afforess 9y ago
I am always impressed by the number of motte and bailey commentors here. The WSJ cravenly lets the most hated corporations write featured Op-eds and that's normal? Ho-hum? Business as usual!? We need to seriously reconsider what we wan
208.
by Afforess 9y ago
False dichotomies and appeal to the middle are absolutely types of word games. I am sick and tired of "moderate"-sounding weasley arguments that excuse corporatocracy and cronyism as "free competition". There's only
209.
by Afforess 9y ago
If cellular data services were not capped (or throttled down, past an imaginary line the phone company rarely shares), then you might have an argument. As it stands, 4g phone service is only a replacement for cable or dsl services for the r
210.
by Afforess 9y ago
And this is universally agreed to be a bad situation.[1] Do not play word games. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happene...

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