alexqgb

18 ms·

121.
by alexqgb 11y ago
The mainstream experience will be on high-end smartphones, not PCs. When Carmack and Facebook talk about getting a billion users into VR, this is how they plan to do it.
122.
by alexqgb 11y ago
@evo-9, All of your observations and concerns suggest a really superficial understanding of VR in general and Oculus in particular. Do a Google search for recent lectures by John Carmack. If you have any serious interest in the field, you
123.
by alexqgb 11y ago
All in, a headset plus a machine to drive it will probably run you ~ $1,500 at launch, though the cost of the PC will come down over time. Interestingly, Oculus has noted that the target spec. for the PC "will not change for the lifeti
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by alexqgb 11y ago
The only thing you can determine by comparing the rates of non-police shootings between the US and the UK is that effective gun control really is effective, and that the "if guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns" argu
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by alexqgb 11y ago
Yeah, the mask really doesn't have very far to slip.
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by alexqgb 11y ago
That's a good point about Muslim Americans. And the American authorities were savvy enough to know that if they wanted to install a system of mass surveillance, the could limit push-back by selling the effort in racially coded terms th
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by alexqgb 11y ago
When adjusting for population, the ratio of police shootings in America to those in Britain is about 70:1. (55 shootings in 24 years in a country w/ ~57 million people vs. 59 shootings in 24 days (Jan. 2015) in a country with ~318 mi
128.
by alexqgb 11y ago
I think there's an important difference between knowing how to do something well (i.e., on a professional basis), and having a basic working understanding of what the process involves; its inputs and outputs, the most significant enabl
129.
by alexqgb 11y ago
You shouldn't need numbers to evaluate a proposition with a premise that is self-evident. I mean, correct diagnosis is one of the first and most fundamental things a hospital does when admitting patients. Failure at this stage cascades
130.
by alexqgb 11y ago
For a hospital manager, that's actually not bad advice.
131.
by alexqgb 11y ago
The thing to remember is that the Internet was never designed as a commercial, ad-friendly place. As many of its architects have noted, it would look very different if it were. That means trying to build an ad-supported business in a plac
132.
by alexqgb 11y ago
Other ways? Like what? If you understand anything about what has actually happened, you'll know that Snowden provided (a) an exhaustive list of all the "other ways" that exist in theory and (b) point-by-point demonstration th
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by alexqgb 11y ago
After "doing something" about Saddam Hussain.
134.
by alexqgb 11y ago
I think you're absolutely right about the negative power that ideology can have in terms of getting (some) people to say that the ends justify means, no matter how atrocious. However, I wouldn't say it's the only thing that
135.
by alexqgb 11y ago
The thing is, all projections are wrong in some sense. That's an unavoidable fact when transposing between flat surfaces where the angles in triangles always add up to 180 degrees, and triangles on curved surfaces where they don&#x27
136.
by alexqgb 11y ago
The problem is not what they believe. The problem the obviously abusive and amoral approach the people in question have taken in acting on those beliefs.
137.
by alexqgb 11y ago
I see where you're going and frankly, it's awful. But since you asked, no, there's no moral equivalence here. The reason why people who get raped, abused, etc. are not responsible for the crimes and assaults committed by othe
138.
by alexqgb 11y ago
Sorry, not buying that. Just because the sentiments involve extend beyond Northwestern does not mean the Northwestern needs to accept - and indeed, support - an egregiously flawed system for resolving conflicts. This is a basic sanitation i
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by alexqgb 11y ago
Exactly. The issue is not the politics or even the personalities involved. After all, these are perennial sources of conflict abd yet they don't invariably produce the awful results seen here. What does produce these results is terri
140.
by alexqgb 11y ago
Great, so artists are reduced to "content producers" that learn to tailor their work - first and foremost - to the comfort level of advertisers. That's not progress. That's a reversion to the medieval. It's like, &q
141.
by alexqgb 11y ago
> "If anything should be open and free, it's art." Sure, and by extension, if anyone should have all their living expenses covered without question and be given whatever materials they need free of change, it's arti
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by alexqgb 11y ago
Yeah, skip the feature. Far better to do an episodic series with each installment being ~24 min.
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by alexqgb 11y ago
Sure, but those are not people spending significant amounts of time on Google, FB, etc. Indeed, if you've enough online access for companies to build profiles on you, you're not a victim of the actual slave trade.
144.
by alexqgb 11y ago
Please don't say "you're the product". Not only is this line absurdly overused, it's also thoughtless, lazy, and wrong. You are not the product. You are a person. You are not being bought, you are not being sold.
145.
by alexqgb 11y ago
What's to stop them? Generally the same thing that stops people from price gouging elsewhere - competitors offering better service and / or price. Unless someone is being forced to pay, getting greedy isn't a great way to s
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by alexqgb 11y ago
Ah, but when every publisher has their own system, going from place to place can make for some pretty rough transitions. The question comes down to whether you work for the system or if the system works for you.
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by alexqgb 11y ago
Why spend hours filling out and copying all that crap, and signing thing after thing after thing just to send the IRS information they already have? Because Intuit, H&R Block, and others like them who have built substantial businesses
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by alexqgb 11y ago
Saying you don't understand journalism's obsession with CMS is like journalists saying they don't understand HN's obsession with programming languages. "But it's what you do that matters, not how you get it do
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by alexqgb 11y ago
In publishing, it's the editors who compose the titles, not the writers. This is why the writer's lede is so frequently a more reliable point of entry to the story.
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by alexqgb 11y ago
I said a selling point, not the selling point. That's a distinction clearly made in the article as well.

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