avz

14 ms·

91.
by avz 9y ago
I believe they talk about the computational task described in [1] (published in 2016). Note that this is somewhat contrived: it's a task defined specifically so that it is very difficult for classical computers and relatively easy for
92.
by avz 9y ago
> You have to go out of your way to find a language where "tea" deviates from those patterns. Well, there you go: Lithuanian: arbata, https://translate.google.com/#en/lt/tea Polish: herbata, https:&#
93.
by avz 9y ago
How would Mars help? Mars, like Earth, is on a tight (1.6 AU) gravitational leash of the Sun. When the Sun dives into one of the galactic arms, so do Mars and Earth. That said, interplanetary travel is probably something we need to get good
94.
by avz 9y ago
> robots on the Moon are literally 3 seconds away (6 seconds round-trip) Moon's apogee (point of furthest distance from Earth) is 405,400km [1]. Speed of light is roughly 300,000km/s [2]. Robots on the Moon are 1.35 seconds awa
95.
by avz 10y ago
> Suppose right now, we have 1 doctor, 1 nurse, and 3 lab techs per 50 patients per day. I think technology generally lets us do the same job with just 2 nurses and 1 lab tech. So we lose 40% of the jobs from the higher paying side and p
96.
by avz 10y ago
> if you're not sure where your next meal comes from? This is certainly work in progress, but: "31. In 1990, more than 60% of people in East Asia lived in extreme poverty. As of 2016, that proportion has dropped to 3.5%."
97.
by avz 10y ago
We do know that under the laws of physics evolution of intelligent creatures is possible. We also know that against someone capable of coming here, we're defenseless, conveniently pinned to this beautiful, but small rock and with no wa
98.
by avz 10y ago
> Plus most instruments on ESA nmissions are sponsored by their implementing institutions e.g. Universities, not ESA. This is true. Regrettably. The instruments are often built using public money and the platforms they sit on are almost
99.
by avz 10y ago
> Since the empty String is a valid String, and Strinfg.valueOf() also returns a String, what other behavior would you ever imagine being sane or possible? IMHO, String.valueOf() throwing NPE upon encountering a null reference would be b
100.
by avz 10y ago
> There are some very difficult challenges in brain-computer interfaces (BCI), some of which involve huge barriers presented by human biology. It's rather depressing. Completely agree. I don't think BCI is likely to take off se
101.
by avz 10y ago
It is very refreshing to see people stand up for principles against narrow self-interest of a political group or authority.
102.
by avz 10y ago
This is true and a valid cause for concern. However, it appears to me that some of the problems in research community could actually benefit from an influx of newly trained, moderately-skilled folk. Consider the low interest among scientist
103.
by avz 10y ago
> Productivity has soared in farming and construction. [...] It's merely a social expectation that we should all work, and a preference, not a necessity, to punish those who don't. This seems like grasping entitlement. High pro
104.
by avz 10y ago
> if having a job wasn't a social norm enforced by threat of starvation, homelessness, bad quality of life, and loss of healthcare [...] If people didn't do their jobs there wouldn't be any food, homes or healthcare. Peopl
105.
by avz 10y ago
This mantra is being repeated over and over: algorithms and automation are taking away the jobs. I'm still skeptical. Ultimately, work is about solving problems which is a complex and multi-stage process: someone must identify the prob
106.
by avz 10y ago
The way I understand the motivation behind UBI is that it is inspired by the notion that we have (mostly) automated production of goods and therefore human work has been (mostly) delegated to machines. It is therefore perfectly reasonable f
107.
by avz 10y ago
> telling an ordinary worker that they need to give up their livelihood What you need to tell the worker is not that they need to give up their livelihood, but that they need to retrain. Still painful, but much less. Also, there are ways
108.
by avz 10y ago
While water is not uncommon in space, liquid water is a very rare. This is due to the fact that liquids in general can only exist in a relatively narrow range of temperatures and pressures (see phase diagram [1]). Europa is one of the few p
109.
by avz 10y ago
> B. There is more aggregate value in having everyone do a bit better than having an occasional student who's amazing and pampered. Especially if they then proceed to go leave and never interact with the local economy again. It&#x27
110.
by avz 10y ago
The section with the "ugly" examples demonstrates some unintended consequences of the memory model. In particular it demonstrates a counterexample to the first theorem of the original JMM paper [1] which sought to establish that i
111.
Java Memory Model Examples: Good, Bad and Ugly (2007) [pdf](groups.inf.ed.ac.uk)
30 points by avz 10y ago|7 comments
112.
by avz 11y ago
Yes, we have already automated away some production facilities and will soon automate the rest, but human work is way more than just producing goods . Increasing amount of our work is focused on solving problems . Saying that we may now s
113.
by avz 11y ago
> Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times. Assuming you accept the need for the non-disclosure requirements in some court orders and administrative subpoenas, wouldn't the decision to allow canaries be a legal mistake
114.
by avz 11y ago
> Small modules are easy to reason about Flip-side: it isn't easy to reason about a large and complicated graph of dependencies.
115.
by avz 11y ago
> pharma companies have been using neural networks and machine learning to classify and select chemical compounds You are describing what someone did at work. We're nowhere near the state of full automation . We've merely auto
116.
by avz 11y ago
People at risk of starvation or homelessness are indeed in exceptional life circumstances and need urgent assistance. This is a matter for social welfare programs. Most developed countries already have such systems in place. UBI is not a we
117.
by avz 11y ago
The often raised argument in defense of UBI is the automation of production. Well, work isn't just about producing goods. We work to solve problems. And there are plenty of problems and challenges that machines won't solve for us
118.
by avz 11y ago
I used to miss generics in Go, but after a few years of coding in both Go and Java I recognize the costs, but also the benefits of their absence. We use generics to define new abstractions. This allows us to reduce redundancy in code and pr
119.
by avz 11y ago
You don't need quantum cryptography to defend against attacks that employ quantum computers. There was an interesting talk on classical encryption algorithms that resist quantum attacks by djb and Tanja Lange at 32c3 last year, see [1,
120.
by avz 11y ago
> 0.02% or whatever of PC users who are dedicated to using Linux as their desktop OS Wikipedia: 1.5% [1] NetMarketShare: 1.71% [2] W3Schools: 5.6% [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste.

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