b1daly

30 ms·

181.
by b1daly 9y ago
Well, banks have tremendous restrictions on what they can do, in collusion, or unilaterally. One very good reason for this high level of regulation is that banks are a primary component of the money supply system. Having a functional moneta
182.
by b1daly 9y ago
The worrying over the effects of extreme AI always strike as being a peculiar quirk of human psychology. It's a hypothetical worry, about a hypothetical problem, when there are actual problems happening now, that could be addressed. Fo
183.
by b1daly 9y ago
I can't see how this squares with the scalability problems of proof-of-work systems. Given the big problems with these limits currently happening with bitcoin, this seems impossible to use in a high bandwidth system. Already bitcoin tr
184.
by b1daly 9y ago
While the government has power to obtain otherwise confidential information from these companies, there are still legal limitations. The laws could be changed to force FB et. al. to provide total access to all the data, all the time. That&#
185.
by b1daly 9y ago
A nice essay generalizing about what people might be willing to pay for, in a world where the marginal cost of production of products that people used to pay for has dropped to zero. One category that he missed is embedding digitized produc
186.
by b1daly 9y ago
The is some kind of disconnect happening here. The tone and content of many comments here reflect an attitude that it's a given that FB having data about, anything, is bad. (Not universally in this comment thread, there are some dissen
187.
by b1daly 9y ago
This reminded me of the astounding UI regression of touch screen interfaces for car audio. Perhaps some readers here will empathize with my following rant. Before the touch screen based, "Entertainment System" trend started, car a
188.
by b1daly 10y ago
The difference is he has a personality disorder, extreme narcissism, that verges into sociopathy. If such an individual gets hold of a position of power, they can ruthlessly "split" the people around them, and exert greater than p
189.
by b1daly 10y ago
I am reading through some of this, and there is some good advice. With the caveat that I've only read a portion, I am put off by the anecdote about the Hyena and the Wildebeest. This is where he seems to be attempting to justify social
190.
by b1daly 10y ago
Maybe it's my old "moral relatavism" kicking in, but the point of view you espouse here seems to have at its core an extreme utilitarianism. As if saving the quantity of lives trumps all other concerns of existence. That&#x27
191.
by b1daly 10y ago
I've been pondering the recent trend in pop up ads where if you try and dismiss it by clicking the tiny, hard to find, checkbox, and you miss, it will cause it to move. This forces you to actually pay attention, to a degree, to the ad,
192.
by b1daly 10y ago
Wait, don't they huge fines paid by Chase, Goldman, and others, indicate that there was some criminal activity involved in how the banks assembled and sold the CDOs? Why would the boards approve the settlements if there wasn't som
193.
by b1daly 10y ago
huh, your laying the blame for Trump on "people like" me? Generalize much?
194.
by b1daly 10y ago
I'm not sure if you'll get this, but I did want to respond. I agree there are valid criticisms to make of Hillary. My main concern is that she is so entrenched within the elite power structure, so captured, that her ability to ste
195.
by b1daly 10y ago
As much as I find his persona to be ridiculously self aggrandizing and smug, Scott Adams made some pretty on point calls on this election, predicting Trump would win over a year ago. He's got some metaphorical construct he calls the &q
196.
by b1daly 10y ago
I'm already sick of this analysis: the rubes got tired of being looked down on by the swells, and golly, showed them good. Not to say that there isn't something to it, it's just that I've read multiple versions of the pa
197.
by b1daly 10y ago
I'm not sure I follow. Can't Congress just pass a law outlawing abortion, Trump signs, then it's the law? For the Supreme Court to overturn, there would have to a lawsuit to stop it.
198.
by b1daly 10y ago
This line of argument would be more persuasive if any of the Republicans, Trump or otherwise, had proposed an alternative that amounts to more than letting people fend for themselves
199.
by b1daly 10y ago
I think the touch pad is going to be one of those things people will just have to try, and it might turn out to be an awesome addition to the input tools at hand. Or it might one of those things that sounded good in theory, but is just a pa
200.
by b1daly 10y ago
I'm mystified by how many major sites have terrible usability issues on mobile devices that are used widely. (older iDevices cheap-mid level Android phones). Are the proprietors of these sites, which live and die on their traffic, actu
201.
by b1daly 10y ago
Hmm, that's weird, I've been struck by the discover weekly' she ability to serve up song after song I've never heard before, maybe two or three out of the thirty are familiar on average. But it's mainly just a disco
202.
by b1daly 10y ago
For me the Discover Weeky playlist is probably the biggest innovation in recorded music distribution since the beginning of commercial music distribution. I've found a couple of artist that have become all time favorites that I very we
203.
by b1daly 10y ago
Slightly off topic, but I've always had a hard wrapping my head around the stance the somehow an API is distinct from code. I understand that it's an abstraction in programming, and that industry practice has been that it's a
204.
by b1daly 10y ago
I've been a professional recording engineer for 20 years. The phenomena I'm discussing is an objectively true, subjective perceptual effect, it doesn't change based on how long you've been recording. Over time you learn
205.
by b1daly 10y ago
I'm somewhat amazed at the near uniformity of opinions on this thread that having such information collected by Google (or other company) is an obvious bad thing. And that decision of millions of everyday people to give up their "
206.
by b1daly 10y ago
This is true that the brain will filter out steady state noise, but this effect is much less strong once a signal has been recorded. Basically, on playback, the steady state noise sounds much louder than it did when you are actually present
207.
by b1daly 10y ago
I understand your point, but I think you're misreading the situation a bit. The U.S. Gov's response that Snowden should have raised his concerns through "proper channels" is pure propaganda. Unfortunately, the highest le
208.
by b1daly 10y ago
The problem with doomsayers is that they are under the influence of a common, but powerful, pattern of thinking that heavily biases their perception and reasons about reality to be highly negative. I think of it as "chicken little-ism&
209.
by b1daly 10y ago
Those are good questions. I'll take a stab at an answer. It's long, I can't quite figure out how to succinctly sum it up. Sometimes writing a longish post helps organize my thoughts, maybe you will find it interesting... I&#x
210.
by b1daly 10y ago
I'm familiar with the argument. Courtney Love did a similar article called Courtney Love Does the Math. http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ The argument is wrong. I'm generalizing, but more

More ›