NickM

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301.
by NickM 7y ago
The auto industry bailout was a loss, but that was smaller than many of the other bailouts, and most of the bailouts were profitable. In net, taxpayers came out substantially ahead in the end. Not that making a direct profit was even the go
302.
by NickM 7y ago
Do you have sources for any of these claims about dopamine? No offense intended, and I agree that the common interpretation of dopamine as the "pleasure chemical" is wrong and oversimplifying, but much of what you're saying s
303.
by NickM 7y ago
In theory yeah it shouldn't be that bad. In practice there are many different third-party charge providers, and they all have their own RFID cards you have to order in advance after setting up accounts and adding payment methods and wh
304.
by NickM 7y ago
If you read the original question on the linked page, it specifically rules out self-powered transportation.
305.
by NickM 7y ago
So to allow this regulatory race to the bottom within a country or a market makes no sense to me at all. Only if the firm would move abroad would there be a net loss. I think part of the trouble is that tax rates are very different across
306.
by NickM 7y ago
It seems like we generally agree. I am a man and I do consider myself a feminist. My intent was not an all to criticize feminism, but rather to lament how much of an “us vs them” issue that feminism has become for many feminists and many no
307.
by NickM 7y ago
I didn’t think this particular piece was combative at all; I was just commenting more generally on the state of society. I actually thought this piece gave a really good supporting example of the point I was trying to make in my comment.
308.
by NickM 7y ago
It's sad to me that the social discourse on gender has become so combative. I think many people on all sides of the debate feel like feminism is a zero-sum movement, where the way to raise women up is to tear men down. In practice, I f
309.
by NickM 7y ago
Yeah it always seemed like it a shaky argument to me too. Even if people were unable to accurately perceive the timing of their own decisions, that doesn't seem to preclude the idea that people are still consciously making those deci
310.
by NickM 7y ago
If the whole argument was based on an experimental result, and that experiment has now been found to be fundamentally flawed and the results of the experiment invalidated, then it seems entirely fine and rational to say that the argument ha
311.
by NickM 7y ago
That's not even the most efficient $/ton offsets that are available. There are non-profits like Cool Earth that are using cleverer approaches to get things down into the vicinity of $1/ton.
312.
by NickM 7y ago
Every problem exists until it doesn't. Saying that a problem has not yet been solved and therefore cannot be solved is a fallacy. It's not a question of whether the human race can solve this problem, it's a question of whet
313.
by NickM 7y ago
I would say CR doesn't back up the "SUVs are safer" argument; they say SUVs are safer in head-on collisions with smaller vehicles, but don't really indicate whether they're more or less safe overall.
314.
by NickM 7y ago
Generally it's the latter, and people are just forced to use it. However, I have made an honest effort to try and see the value in it, but the whole concept of trying to squeeze everything into artificial scheduling boundaries via spri
315.
Ask HN: Have you ever seen Scrum work well?
8 points by NickM 7y ago|9 comments
316.
by NickM 7y ago
In this election, the spoiler candidate was the Republican. If the Republican hadn't run, the Democrat would've beaten the Progressive, and the majority of voters would've preferred that outcome (including the majority of Rep
317.
by NickM 7y ago
Regardless of whether anyone actually votes strategically in practice though, it seems pretty understandable that people would feel disillusioned when they see an outcome like this. Most IRV supporters say "you can honestly rank your p
318.
by NickM 7y ago
I don't live in Burlington so I may not have as much background on this as a native would, but my impression is that the Burlington election showed that strategic voting it's still a problem with IRV, contrary to what its supporte
319.
by NickM 7y ago
Not a bad suggestion, but are the optics really that much better? Definitely gives me a dystopian vibe of "paying humans pennies to help AI automate away what few other jobs they have left to them".
320.
by NickM 7y ago
IRV isn't perfect, but it's a huge improvement over the current state of affairs. I disagree. In theory, yes it's an improvement, but it still doesn't eliminate the spoiler effect, and in practice it's much harder
321.
by NickM 7y ago
This may be too cynical, but I have to wonder if it's because of its flaws that the two parties in power are allowing RCV to gain ground. RCV eliminates the spoiler effect for non-competitive third-party candidates, but conveniently
322.
by NickM 7y ago
But IRV still does allow you to throw your vote away. Once third parties become competitive, the best strategy in IRV regresses back to "your first choice vote should be whichever of the two most viable candidates you prefer". IRV
323.
by NickM 7y ago
Well okay, so I'm getting a bit off-topic with the whole "food is inefficient" argument, but if you look at the efficiency of photosynthesis it only harvests about 3%-6% of the light energy hitting the plant. A lot of that en
324.
by NickM 7y ago
You can raise them with technology or population growth, but there again, you're bumping up against ecological constraints. Population growth, yes, but technology? Why can't technology continue to improve in terms of efficiency
325.
by NickM 7y ago
Food in general is a massively inefficient way to convert solar energy into muscular exertion. If you compare all the steps that occur from farming all the way to getting the food on your table, and then add in how inefficient our bodies
326.
by NickM 7y ago
Oh my gosh, wow, what a strange coincidence! I totally did not notice that I was replying to the same person who wrote that post. Small world :) And yeah, I wasn't necessarily reading too much into the comparison since of course there
327.
by NickM 7y ago
I've seen compelling arguments that driving a Model 3 actually even has lower average CO2 emissions per mile than riding a bike, since riding a bike requires eating extra calories to power it, and food has a substantial carbon footprin
328.
by NickM 7y ago
Yes, it is only enabled while the car is parked.
329.
by NickM 7y ago
A perfect brain simulator could answer many questions, but it could not answer the hard problem of consciousness. Science is all about objectivity, but there's an element of consciousness that is inherently subjective, and that part -
330.
by NickM 7y ago
Something that has puzzled me recently: how is anyone supposed to get the daily recommended amount of potassium? If you look at foods like bananas that are supposed to be good sources of it, you still need to eat something like eleven banan

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