avz

30 ms·

241.
by avz 12y ago
Good to know, thx. Traditional publishing does indeed seem to require cooperation of a number of different people and organizations to write the text, design the cover, prepare the layout, proofread the manuscript, size the issue, print the
242.
by avz 12y ago
Internet is not only making it possible for writers to make it without publishers, but without editors too since writers can involve their readers in proofreading and get serious constructive advice this way. This also makes readers more ac
243.
by avz 12y ago
I think it's very important that businesses engaged in development and application of nuclear technology pursue public education more vigorously. Public level of understanding of nuclear technology is depressing. The past fear campaign
244.
by avz 12y ago
Sharing your car or home involves a substantial risk and requires trust so people have traditionally been doing it mostly within their private networks of friends and family. What Uber, Airbnb and the like have achieved is the application o
245.
by avz 12y ago
Shell and browser. That's all I need.
246.
by avz 12y ago
I would't know about McDonald's, but at least where I live Starbucks offers a lot better and in many ways different service than local cafes. It's also very different from what I have seen in the US. I made a real effort to g
247.
by avz 12y ago
Taxi service doesn't allow you to easily share your car and hotels don't allow you to easily share your flat. Traditional renting of an apartment is a long-term proposition which again inhibits sharing.
248.
by avz 12y ago
"To share" means "to use or enjoy something jointly or in turns" (source: http://thefreedictionary.com/share ). I hear Starbucks customers generally receive their own coffee each. Note also that sharing d
249.
by avz 12y ago
You're mixing up freedom with safety. The conflict between freedom and certainty is real. Having enough money for food, shelter and medical care means having the ability to command other people to grow food for you, build a shelter for
250.
by avz 12y ago
Not sure about Berlin, but in many places getting a taxi license (medallion) involves paying so much money that people use mortgage-like financing to get it. This denies taxi jobs to low income and unskilled people without good credit ratin
251.
by avz 12y ago
It's true that Uber follows a liberal interpretation of existing regulations and this gives rise to legitimate concerns about fairness of its competition with the incumbents. Nevertheless, the new model does offer some benefits over th
252.
by avz 12y ago
Nitpick (since I don't dispute your main point): Parents aren't the sole source of influence in a person's formative years. Kindergarten, neighborhood, peer group, school are just as if not more influential. In fact, some pro
253.
by avz 12y ago
Many successful people will resent contributing to the welfare of the not-so-successful regardless of who is to blame for the misfortune of the latter. It's yet another instance of the tribal mentality dividing people into "us&quo
254.
by avz 12y ago
> Yet many are oblivious of their own advantages, and of other people’s disadvantages. The result is [...] partly explaining the hostility to state expansion of Medicaid, to long-term unemployment benefits, or to raising the minimum wage
255.
by avz 12y ago
You don't need to terraform a planet in order to inhabit it. Also, not all disasters are easily managed or predicted. Hypothetical virus with long incubation period that spreads quietly to almost every human on Earth before giving any
256.
by avz 12y ago
> ...second habitable home for humanity [...] or exploration for its own sake. None of these are particularly compelling given the economics behind them. So this is what economics has done to "going boldly"? No wonder it's
257.
by avz 12y ago
I'm with you on balance: state is better than no state. However, I don't think the matter is as clear cut as you think. A few examples (I'll try to match them to yours): Public infrastructure projects often involve bribery an
258.
by avz 12y ago
(Only tangentially related) If you're a space exploration nerd working in the space industry you'll realize one day that your salary and benefits are space exploration costs. This produces the following dilemma: Accept a small pay
259.
by avz 12y ago
The hardest part is not so much modeling the comet's gravity, but modeling the aerodynamic effects since at this distance from the Sun outgassing is already taking place at a substantial rate. It's a big blow to the flight dynamic
260.
by avz 12y ago
The article did not say what sample size the new research was based on or how it was conducted, but provided detailed projections over the next 20 years. Media still giving us all the numbers except the ones that matter.
261.
by avz 12y ago
Also: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt
262.
by avz 12y ago
It's not that simple. If you lend me money and I don't repay, the open market allows you to recover some of it by selling the debt to someone else. However, if there was no hope of getting the money back there would have been no b
263.
by avz 12y ago
You and a lot of other people on HN are very self-driven and would definitely maintain or perhaps even increase their contribution to society and civilization if given a free ride. A lot of inventors and discoverers of yore were wealthy ari
264.
by avz 12y ago
If Ein-Euro-Jobs were used by Germany as a wage-dumping tactic then the euro crisis and consequential unemployment rise in the south of the continent would lead to increase in the number of people in Ein-Euro-Jobs in Germany. Now, since the
265.
by avz 12y ago
I doubt we will all become engineers, scientists and technologists working on reinventing agriculture and energy grids in any foreseeable future (quite possibly any future at all). The wave of automation you're talking about has alread
266.
by avz 12y ago
This is a misrepresentation. The purpose of the program is definitely not to create an army of slave workers for the German state. The so called "Ein-Euro-Jobs" are intended to help people on long-term unemployment benefits to bec
267.
by avz 12y ago
Define the "natural" state of affairs. Is literacy part of this "natural" state? How about real time communication across thousands of miles? It's a lot more constructive to talk about a desirable state of affairs.
268.
by avz 12y ago
return -EWRONGSIDE;
269.
by avz 12y ago
This is possible in the current configuration, too. In fact, it may be easier to compel a human driver to keep quiet than a networked onboard computer relentlessly feeding speed, position, tire pressure and other telemetry to some sort of r
270.
by avz 12y ago
How does one force themselves to care?

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