b1daly

38 ms·

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by b1daly 13y ago
The power of the "Matrix" concept is its illustration of the subjectiveness of what we think of as "reality." I think we for sure live in the meatspace version of the Matrix. So it's more blobish, but it's a di
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by b1daly 13y ago
Can anyone comment on the implications of the sub-divisibilty of bitcoins? Is it practically infinite? This would seem to be totally new territory for "currency." It does seem to be a near perfect vehicle for pure speculation righ
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by b1daly 13y ago
It does seem like the Groupon model has promise for businesses that have low marginal cost of goods like an under utilized yoga studio. What other kinds of businesses have this quality? Sellers of digital goods for sure, in wich case the Gr
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by b1daly 13y ago
All property is a legal fiction, is it not?
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by b1daly 13y ago
That is an interesting observation of blowback from NSA overreach (stronger crypto enabling bonafide bad actors to escape detection). I appreciate the response, as I feel like many people post here with sort of an implicit perspective that
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by b1daly 13y ago
Well, what are the risks off exposing your data to the NSA? This seems to be assumed to be this terrible thing, making it worth it to undertake expensive and annoying measures to avoid it. Do you really think this is going to be worth it to
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by b1daly 13y ago
I live in Madison where reading the Onion in print was just sort of something one did! It was a sublime experience, and a lot of its satirical focus came from the newspaper form. The articles would be cut out and put on refrigerators or bul
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by b1daly 13y ago
It's weird,but I feel like my PCs are all you slow. I bought a rMAcBook Pro recently expecting to be blown away, but it still feels sluggish to me. I want instantaneous response when it comes down to it. There actually is a qualitative
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by b1daly 13y ago
Man, I could use some actionable advice about how to improve my lot right now, but I can never seem to find it in such articles! Scott Adams is also an edge case, in that he is a world class cartoonist. Without that level of talent, I don&#
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by b1daly 13y ago
Not exactly on topic, but related: with all the revelations around the NSA spying, I've started thinking about the internet as basically a non-private space. It's a distributed network, and data passes through myriad corporate and
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by b1daly 13y ago
I know I'm not unique in being bugged by RMS's ideas but I do feel the need to attempt to articulate why. There has been, in the rarified world of tech commenters, an increasing number of people claiming Stallman has been proven c
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by b1daly 13y ago
This is like a parody of innovation! It looks like a concept project mostly. The key to making anything like this comes from how well it is integrated with the software, and audio production software is really hard to get right. There is a
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by b1daly 13y ago
Me too, I actually find hipster culture, to the extent it is indeed a thing, to bring a certain sense of fun to my little world. As opposed to everyone just giving up and buying what they see on TV, watching football, Facebook etc.
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by b1daly 13y ago
A wise old woman in AA once told me that addicts are just like everybody else, only more so." You will find a full spectrum of introverts to extroverts in Recovery. H I don't think a definition of addictive "personality&quot
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by b1daly 13y ago
Over what time!
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by b1daly 13y ago
Jesus man, nature, at least in the context discussed here as evolution, is not smart. It's just description of what happens. I've heard of no convincing explanation of natural selection that describes it as an intentional force. O
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by b1daly 13y ago
This reasoning is suspect: repeatedly pushing oneself to work to exhaustion as a form of training for real work where you need to work longs seems unlikely to offer more than diminishing returns. How often do bankers need to work three stra
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by b1daly 13y ago
I'm amazed so many people can leave their computers on for days. I do audio production and also run a lot of utilities on Mac OS 10.6 and 10.8. Both of my computers regularly enter states of non functioning that require reboots (someti
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by b1daly 13y ago
Siskel & Ebert for us old timers!
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by b1daly 13y ago
While it does seem likely that a disruption in education is immanent, the article doesn't ring true. I can't quite put my finger on it but it has something to do with assuming that the institutions of the elite (businesses, govern
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by b1daly 13y ago
You can start here to get a sense of the depth of this man's obsession to highlight how far Nokia has fallen. I find him to be a reasonably entertaining writer, he's crafted a dramatic narrative around the foibles of Nokia. http:
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by b1daly 13y ago
It's hard to believe that Apple could get this through in the US given the amount of live marks with the word STARTUP. Over 50 results! I have been working on a trademark application that was rejected preliminary basis on the grounds
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by b1daly 13y ago
I think the OP shows the opposite of your thesis, that the USG is getting worse. As much as I agree that the USG is doing bad things now, it seems clear that in any historical context things have gotten better overall. We now have lawyers i
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by b1daly 13y ago
I appreciate the technical correction in the difference between derivatives and structured debt backed securities, I did not know of this important distinction. In any case I was responding to the contention that financial crisis of 2008 wa
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by b1daly 13y ago
How something like a credit default swap net to zero? If I sell you one, I create a new instrument which has a stream of income (so it can be valued theoretically). But if the securitIes that are insured against are to opaque to be valued,
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by b1daly 13y ago
>The financial crisis was born out of over-enthusiastic mortgage lending - i.e your basic retail product. Even lehman brothers, a classic IB, went down due to it's large commercial property portfolio which tanked in the crisis (agai
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by b1daly 13y ago
While I think there are certainly reasons to be concerned with the phenomena Doctorow is describing, I find his reasoning unpersuasive.As a general observation, he is making an argument that certain trends are bad because they could lead to
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by b1daly 13y ago
It's hard for me take this at face value given that I haven't heard that there is a scientific understanding of what the mind is. You seem to be asserting an unfalsifiable, almost axiomatic statement that the mind cannot produce e
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by b1daly 13y ago
This is an interesting question, what is value? What I took away from my econ classes long ago is that it's hard to determine the value of something outside of price (objectively). So if the hypothetical US taxpayer is satisfied with t
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by b1daly 13y ago
Your example illustraTes the weakness of these articles. The internet is nothing like a house. Your example would make more sense if the NSA was secretly spying on your non internet connected computer, by secretly placing key loggers that t

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