AlanSE

21 ms·

151.
by AlanSE 7y ago
This is an enlightening comment. I have always been intrigued by the idea of micro transactions. In a modern formulation, duplicate Reddit, but replace upvotes with 0.001 cents donations (to who? I don't care). If you hold shift and cl
152.
by AlanSE 7y ago
I think that most people, if offered $17/year for Facebook, would quit. I don't think the value to the user is that great. That's not a problem for the company as it exists today. It feels like a flawed assumption that users
153.
by AlanSE 7y ago
What content do you feel like we will miss out on? Genuine question. Clearly, Wikipedia would keep operating. Universities would continue to operate web presence, but their highest quality content (academic papers) is already paywalled. As
154.
by AlanSE 7y ago
There is a difference between working as part of a non-software company's IT department, and working for a company that makes "dull line-of-business apps". Google maintains a large array of line-of-business apps. You probably
155.
by AlanSE 7y ago
Claiming that oil is subsidized is a tired trope. Yes you can argue that the Iraq War was done for oil, it's just not a strong argument. Many oil producing nations use oil revenue to subsidize everything else they (the government) want
156.
by AlanSE 7y ago
Very interesting way to look at the topic. However, if I adopt that perspective, I come to the opposite conclusion. Corporations are limited liability. It is expected that shareholders have distributed ownership in many companies. For Starc
157.
by AlanSE 7y ago
This comment said the same thing as the 4-paragraph comment about corporate finance. Yet somehow so much easier to understand.
158.
by AlanSE 7y ago
It's not even a very good T. Some letters are more impressive than others. Q is totally worthless for the political point. But N, D, U, and a few others are real gems.
159.
by AlanSE 7y ago
Awesome job implementing a single-click clearing when clicking on, say, a 2 with 2 marked mines next to it. The original Windows version where you had to double click was too cumbersome. https://github.com/AlanCoding/Al
160.
by AlanSE 7y ago
The word colonialism is a pejorative. The tone of the word in modern language is extremely negative. The point being made is that the word is so negative that the commenter had to go as far as nazis to find another word that is worse.
161.
by AlanSE 7y ago
Maybe a problem of units? Sea levels are rising due to the melting of land ice. That's a historic fact, but predicts are concerned with how much it will rise. There is a chance that it will reverse, and before 100 sea level will actual
162.
by AlanSE 7y ago
No big decisions have a 100% confidence level, that's an absurd criteria. Catastrophic events are also a bad thing to look at because researchers tend to just stop the detailed simulations beyond a certain horizon (specifically 100 yea
163.
by AlanSE 7y ago
There are many ways we can improve our lives with collective action which cannot be done on the individual level. That's really bedrock to modern society. Virtually everything that you pay a tax for qualifies for this definition, and t
164.
by AlanSE 7y ago
I don't care about relating these two tings, because they are an intentionally weak straw-man chosen to hijack the discussion. Carbon emissions are mostly from transportation and energy production - neither of which are goods. Both hav
165.
by AlanSE 7y ago
The atmosphere can absorb it, but many ecosystems (the important ones for people) cannot survive the resulting changes in climate.
166.
by AlanSE 7y ago
Yes, this is the question I come to. The article betrays its own claim... > Gustafson said that for training, 32-bit floating point is overkill and in some cases doesn’t even perform as well as the smaller 16-bit posits If posits have a
167.
by AlanSE 7y ago
This comment needs more visibility. Everyone is stumbling by this stuff and missing the context. I got a spat of emails about organizations leaving Medium and was like "okay whatever", but then I discovered that basically everythi
168.
by AlanSE 7y ago
Gas fired plants cause cancer?
169.
by AlanSE 7y ago
Having come from nuclear engineering, I'd say it's pretty typical for people speaking of large conceptual engineering designs. Paper reactors, paper spaceships, etc. are often spoken of in present tense. The design exists now and
170.
by AlanSE 7y ago
> What is probably way easier though (and actually survives launch and particles hitting it and is already proven in practice) is to use ablative heat shields on missiles. The word "ablative" is typically used in reference to r
171.
by AlanSE 7y ago
I see the fallacy in the parent comment just a little differently. It suffers from the "can't prove a negative" problem. The comment never argued in favor of life elsewhere, and certainly not in any concrete form. It only sai
172.
by AlanSE 8y ago
Any system that requires manual curating of these things by the user is doomed to fail. I'm probably the demographic most prone to try features, so I'll try to make some circles, but I have to admit failure. Even whatever you call
173.
by AlanSE 8y ago
oh sorry, I wasn't clear. I was talking about hotels asking for your ID. It is also true that Japan checks ID for alcohol less often (it would be hard to check more often than the U.S.), but that might just mean they're more comfo
174.
by AlanSE 8y ago
The drunk driving argument extends to Japan extremely poorly due to cultural and infrastructure differences. Public transportation in Japan is great. In urban areas it's also quite easy, accessible, and affordable to rent a capsule hot
175.
by AlanSE 8y ago
I didn't really recommend it, and the reason I borrowed from it in my comment was for an economic point which was not its main focus. To borrow from your own link: > Lawrence Summers criticizes Piketty for underestimating the dimini
176.
by AlanSE 8y ago
It's not only reasonable, but is becoming increasingly accepted. I finished this book a little while ago: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/d... But it really said the same thing that many
177.
by AlanSE 8y ago
It's very strange for you to argue that executives pay mostly income tax. From the perspective of a corporation, their main concern is paying corporate tax. The people who own the shares then make gains from capital gains. Uber is a gr
178.
by AlanSE 8y ago
It works well in some circumstances, but not in those circumstances. In places where it does work, urban development had to change to accommodate transit. All of the existing development and infrastructure is so inflexible that these partic
179.
by AlanSE 8y ago
Even if the cars of the future won't be able to drive on all roads at all time, I don't see how it would matter all that much. Of course there will always be forms of rural driving where the terrain is unknown and there are limite
180.
by AlanSE 8y ago
Light that comes within 3/2 of the Schwarzschild radius (Rs hereafter) gets captured by the black hole. Of course I don't mean that it beelines in a direct radial direction to the singularity. Of course it takes a curved path depe

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