alexqgb

33 ms·

241.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Actually, he was replying to a comment that centered on the specific threat level that a particular individual thought he may be facing, so a calculation like this is exactly on point.
242.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Marc Rogers makes a convincing case that North Korea was almost certainly not behind the attack, and that a disgruntled (former?) employee was. His analysis makes the terrorism threat seem even hollower. http://marcrogers.org&#x2
243.
by alexqgb 12y ago
At the very least, start the standing meeting at 7-8 am California time. That's the decent way to run a global organization from the West Coast.
244.
by alexqgb 12y ago
The term of art is "parallel reconstruction." In presenting law enforcement with ill-gotten information, the intelligence service also provides a plausible account of how law enforcement could have gotten the information in anot
245.
by alexqgb 12y ago
This underscores the fact that the word "privacy" is generally used as a euphemism for power. Knowing this, you can safely substitute the word "power" for "privacy" nearly everywhere it appeares. The first thin
246.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Obviously not. And that's for the simple reason that the theory of evolution describes living things. As I'm sure you know, a tablet is not a living thing. Therefore, the theory of evolution doesn't even try to account for
247.
by alexqgb 12y ago
The fault in your logic is your failure to account for the extrordinary difference in timescales involved in the creation of tablets and ferns. It's worth remembering that Charles Darwin was a geologist by training. At the time, geol
248.
by alexqgb 12y ago
How do you know they didn't read the whole post? In other words, how do you know that you're not being downvoted for refusing to acknowledge the world of difference between black ops as practiced before and after 9/11 (or m
249.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Sorry wooster, but "time spent thinking" is utterly irrelevant. Why? Because the expression is meaningless. To have meaning it needs to indicate to what end . There's a world of difference between (for example) "thinkin
250.
by alexqgb 12y ago
The NSA may not arrest people directly, but considered in relation to other agencies, their work becomes distinctly sinister (e.g. "You track 'em we whack 'em" with regard to the CIA). The practice of collaborating with
251.
by alexqgb 12y ago
And as Lessig is fond of pointing out, code is law.
252.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Did I say the people are dumb? No, I said the rules are dumb and the system that formulated those rules is dumb. Extending this to the people running the system was an inference you made, not something I actually said. As it turns out, th
253.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Over the last decade, UC has grown the number of executives earning over $400,000 per year by 500%. Thy've also tripled in-state tuition in that time. And since 2008, managers and executives have been the fastest growing segment of t
254.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Lowest bid policies are not just stupid, they're obviously stupid. So not only do you have an obviously stupid policy, you've got the obviously stupid system that settled on such an obviously stupid policy in the first place. Give
255.
by alexqgb 12y ago
There's no need to merely suspect. You can be (depressingly) sure thanks to Thomas Drake, who blew the whistle on the NSA for not only not doing things the right way, but for spending gargantuan sums of money to do things in a way so w
256.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Not sure why you're being down-voted. The comparison you were pointing out as being obviously idiotic is, in fact, obviously idiotic. There's a far better comparison to be made with IP produced by NASA, for instance, which is auto
257.
by alexqgb 12y ago
It's striking to see how many people rejecting pg's thesis seem not to have read it very carefully. His piece has a lot more nuance than the comments would lead you to believe. Specifically, he's referring to an emerging tren
258.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Yup, invalidating by dint of the source is just classic ad hominem . That's especially problematic here since - in this case - the unions actually have a point. If tech companies were less focused on H1-Bs in particular, and were simp
259.
by alexqgb 12y ago
There's growing evidence that fear is hugely counterproductive. That's because the relentless stress is causes turns out to be an inhibitor of economic growth, rather than an accelerant. If the economy is, in fact, being run on fe
260.
by alexqgb 12y ago
You really have no idea what went on, do you? Spend some time googling stories about people who operated by the book at the ratings agencies. Their careers...did not go well.
261.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Thanks for the kind words. I hope they help.
262.
by alexqgb 12y ago
The downside to this is that (for the most part) a basic income mucks with the incentive structure. "Mucks with" is not a positive term. And to be sure, there are employers for whom the introduction of UBI would be a very negati
263.
by alexqgb 12y ago
I'm sorry nailer, but do you honestly think that what you've just proposed proposed is an accurate reflection of the situation with Pando and Uber? Because there's a world of difference between journalists reporting on comp
264.
by alexqgb 12y ago
"A good response to an argument is one that addresses an idea; a bad argument is one that silences it." That doesn't make any sense. People with bad ideas frequently fall to silence when the discussion of countervailing good
265.
by alexqgb 12y ago
As Ben Johnson so famously said "Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee."
266.
by alexqgb 12y ago
It's as if we'll all have to censor our thoughts before pronouncing them. You know, this really isn't a problem for people who don't have thoughts about silencing critics by intimidating their families.
267.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Here's a really really grim (but very well written) account of the postdoc landscape. The short version is that the present tightening is just a a prelude to what many in the field see as a much bigger storm. The killer line is this on
268.
by alexqgb 12y ago
To the best of my knowledge, the IRS has avoided the specter of regulatory capture simply because there is no single industry big enough to take down an agency with such a broad mandate. Most of the industry-specific loopholes that the IRS
269.
by alexqgb 12y ago
Art is often where change first appears, but it's also where change starts to figure itself out; to find a syntax and a vocabulary. In this sense, it's more than just a reflection, it's an agent - which is not to say it'
270.
by alexqgb 12y ago
As I said, generally speaking . Obviously, there are exceptions - like the FCC - that stand out for one unique reason or another (directly managing a publicly-held resource like the wireless spectrum, for instance, or the Dept. of the Inte

More ›