beat

23 ms·

241.
by beat 7y ago
I don't think I'm ignoring the cost. Rather, I'm thinking that it's the mechanism most likely to arrive at a correct conclusion. Think of scientific method, by comparison... it's slow, inefficient, and expensive, bu
242.
by beat 7y ago
I'm not trying to lecture you or tell you what to do. I'm saying this is why some people do what they do. If you're saying that people who feel a need to block threatening voices shouldn't do so, who's lecturing, ex
243.
by beat 7y ago
The article makes it very clear how the marketplace itself biases against fringe ideas, and the path fringe ideas must take to become mainstream. That was the whole point of it! As for the critique of Pinker... by focusing on the past few d
244.
by beat 7y ago
Some people face challenges to their very right to exist online. Muting the people who say such things is easier than fighting or coping. Look up spoon theory for a practical explanation.
245.
by beat 7y ago
The question is, does rational thought win in the long run in the marketplace of ideas, despite emotional thought also benefiting from the marketplace? I believe it does. That's why human rights move forwards overall, not backwards.
246.
by beat 7y ago
It also reduces the capital requirements for any single contractor.
247.
by beat 7y ago
There's this thing I say a lot... in large organizations, it's more important do appear safe (even if it's risky) than to appear risky (even if it's safe).
248.
by beat 7y ago
I once wrote a blog article ranting about how we shouldn't use the word "sprint", because it focuses on speed. Rather, we should say "iteration", which focuses on change. Pushing agile as faster rather than bette
249.
by beat 7y ago
Yeah, we did Waterscrumban. We're in our third sprint. The first sprint, we moved "requirements" from backlog to doing. Second spring, we moved "requirements" to done, and moved "design" to doing. Third sp
250.
by beat 7y ago
That only works with similar architectures. I've been involved with converting mainframe batch systems to service-oriented architectures on distributed systems, and that sort of mirroring does not work at all . It's fine for pryi
251.
by beat 7y ago
"inevitably all code has the tendency to become a giant mess". There, fixed it for you.
252.
by beat 7y ago
I dunno. I used to read Ken Rockwell a lot back when I bought a lot of camera gear, and he can be pretty harsh on things he doesn't like. His attitude is mostly positive, but I think that's in part because he documented an era of
253.
by beat 7y ago
I actually use those headphones for other things (I'm a studio recording musician in my copious spare time, and they're my favorite studio headphones). I just put the dongle in the same pocket as my wallet and loose change. Haven&
254.
by beat 7y ago
Why is it so hard to just use a dongle? I use old-school wired studio headphones with my iPhone... I just leave the dongle that came with the phone on them.
255.
by beat 7y ago
My atttitude toward a Cal Newport article is that he's published multiple highly regarded books that I've read and found very insightful and applicable in practice. So when he writes something that's brief and does some handw
256.
by beat 7y ago
I think simple observation provides plenty of evidence. It's not a real scientific-method approach, but if you want to dismiss the relationship he's talking about, you need either to find a flaw in his reasoning or offer a better
257.
by beat 7y ago
So at the end of the first term, we vomit a president up, and might eat the president again for a second term?
258.
by beat 7y ago
As Robert Anton Wilson observed, we say dogs are our best friends, but we keep the best food for ourselves. Dogs know this, of course, and love us anyway.
259.
by beat 7y ago
Many of our worst diseases historically are species-jumpers, including influenza and smallpox. "Bird flu" and "swine flu" are so named because that's where they start.
260.
by beat 7y ago
https://energynews.us/2015/02/13/midwest/blowing-away-myths-...
261.
by beat 7y ago
And maybe someday, they'll be an actual alternative that actual power companies can by on an actual market. But they aren't, not today, and they won't be for at least a decade. I don't want to wait, and even if I did, th
262.
by beat 7y ago
Yeah. A lot of my attitude about pricing turns into pro-nuclear advocates treating me as Treehugging Enemy of Progress, and one of the things they point to is the always-in-the-future dream of small, simple thorium molten salt reactors. But
263.
by beat 7y ago
"Windless" is greatly overrated, for two reasons. First, utility-scale wind is built hundreds of feet in the air, not on the ground. Wind is much steadier there. And it's built in carefully selected locations for steady behav
264.
by beat 7y ago
Reliable enough to say "Wind will provide at least this much power , even on a "non-windy" day. Also, keep in mind that wind is much, much steadier 200 feet in the air than it is on the ground, where it's subject to all
265.
by beat 7y ago
Capital costs are a legit concern. If something happens in international markets that causes interest rates to spike globally, it will set back the pace of conversion tremendously.
266.
by beat 7y ago
And a nuclear plant costs about the same to run whether it's running at 100%, or 20%. Fuel costs are negligible relative to capital and operational costs. So when lower-cost competition appears and eats into the demand for nuclear powe
267.
by beat 7y ago
Not forcing... just having market forces encourage good behavior, instead of hiding the underlying cost pressures from them. Look at it this way. With enough variation over the day, you create a market for storage. Let's say stored ele
268.
by beat 7y ago
Negative prices? You'll pay me to take electricity off your hands that I can sell later? That's the best argument for the battery storage market I've seen yet... (And really, it makes sense. Generate surplus when the sun is
269.
by beat 7y ago
It doesn't matter whether you see it or not. What matters is if the market sees it. If solar + storage comes out cheaper than alternatives, it wins. Period. The market will insure that. If you don't think it is possible, you need
270.
by beat 7y ago
That's exactly what the market is doing, right now. The more wind/solar we get, the cheaper and more robust they are. And when they start costing a lot less than coal/nuclear (which is where we are now), then coal and nucle

More ›