Retra

1627 ms·

4741.
by Retra 12y ago
The complexity of a problem doesn't tell you anything at all about the complexity of a solution. Many problems that we face are "angels dancing on pins"-type problems, where the only 'complexity' involved is all the
4742.
by Retra 12y ago
> Any complex question gets a complex answer. Oh, but complexity is just another word for ignorance. There's a reason that mankind didn't learn to fly by mimicking birds -- it's because you don't solve a complex probl
4743.
by Retra 12y ago
Exactly. "At any cost" should only apply to long-term full-scale survival threats. With every other problem, you should only ever except "at reasonable cost." And in order to know what cost is reasonable, you have to do
4744.
by Retra 12y ago
What does any of this have to do with a singularity?
4745.
by Retra 12y ago
Markdown isn't a means of communicating information?
4746.
by Retra 12y ago
So your idea of 'force' is just flexible enough to qualify regulation as violence, but a monopoly is still ok? Nobody forces a business to get big. Nobody forces a business to even exist.
4747.
by Retra 12y ago
I'll quote one of my math professors: "At this level, nobody knows how to subtract!"
4748.
by Retra 12y ago
Your food for thought is hundreds of years old and getting a bit stale.
4749.
by Retra 12y ago
I might like to talk to people if they weren't all hiding incompetence behind a sales pitch.
4750.
by Retra 12y ago
You could get electricity back with something as simple as a stirling engine, but there is no point to doing that, as you aren't storing enough to take yourself off the grid anyhow.
4751.
by Retra 12y ago
Value is not an objective property of a thing, so I don't see your point. Things have value by the virtue of them being valued, not solely because someone wants to spend money on it.
4752.
by Retra 12y ago
Ah yes, money is the only measure of value in the world... It's a good thing my kids pay me to love them.
4753.
by Retra 12y ago
Or use your decimal as a place extension instead of a hierarchal separator. Your tree would look like this: 1 11 12 1.0 2 21 Then you just ensure that '.' sorts after all digits. (Probably by using a different sy
4754.
by Retra 12y ago
Why are people entitled to self interest? Why aren't people entitled to group interest? Governments exist because having them tends to lead to better decision-making than the alternative. That's all it requires. Nobody is proposin
4755.
by Retra 12y ago
They still get married, don't they?
4756.
by Retra 12y ago
I've had some problems with security in happiness: I generally feel like that security is just idling -- that the stuff I _really_ want to do if being inhibited by the drudgery I have to do to have security. I don't want a stable
4757.
by Retra 12y ago
I've been trying out vim for a while, hoping to get more productive, but the fact that "hjkl" is not "jkl;" -home keys- and that I have to reach all the way across the keyboard to hit [esc] every three seconds is no
4758.
by Retra 12y ago
That's a sensible reason, sure, but I'd rather declare it with an actual type instead.
4759.
by Retra 12y ago
This makes me wonder what the point of writing 'var' is if it doesn't tell you the type of the variable.
4760.
by Retra 12y ago
There may be an engineering barrier below c when you account for fuel efficiency. Once you start requiring large volumes of nearly impossibly efficient (thrust-weight) fuels, then you will be stuck, even if you aren't anywhere near the
4761.
by Retra 12y ago
Having a good way to measure something is very different from something being impossible to measure...
4762.
by Retra 12y ago
The author spends quite some time explaining that MS SQL Server's CSV is mangled and broken, and what you've said is that it exports CSV. So what does your comment contribute, except to say that you didn't read the article?
4763.
by Retra 12y ago
That's still ~500x faster than any man-made object has ever moved.
4764.
by Retra 12y ago
This is a very common idea. It is so common, in fact, that the only real way to not know why it is wrong is if you've never heard of entanglement or relativity before. I personally find it a bit insulting to propose something like this
4765.
by Retra 12y ago
> Do you disagree with the concept of voting with your wallet? That concept is fantastically distopian. The concept "voting with your wallet" is practically abject propaganda. We have a word for this already and it's not &