brownbat

36 ms·

331.
by brownbat 8y ago
> despite the fact that virtually none of them have ever been in a room where the real meaningful foreign policy decisions are made I always liked this quote about policymaking: "This is the most pervasive of of all Washington legen
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by brownbat 8y ago
Love the details for completeness, like modes, and your discussion of adjustments you found necessary along the way. Great job on the project and great explainer video too. Slight tangent--I've often wondered if the principles behind a
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by brownbat 8y ago
With Chinese, I felt like sunk a lot of time into memorizing characters for the illusion of progress without actually learning how to engage with the language. On the other hand, with Korean, I spent some time up front learning to type, and
334.
by brownbat 8y ago
Some interesting points, thanks for the reply. > Do you think this is how paper ballots work? It was definitely a hyperbole. But I think there is a lot of assumption of trust in the status quo, and I think we are frequently let down by t
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by brownbat 8y ago
That's why they killed Outbox, which could block paper spam. They later started running that service themselves (until they decide the security challenges are not worth it): https://www.forbes.com/sites/theopriestl
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by brownbat 8y ago
Based on the dismissive tone, you might not really be interested in any discussion here, so apologies if I'm throwing gas on a fire. But we have different takes on how to solve those problems, so I want a shot at clarifying my position
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by brownbat 8y ago
People often focus on the potential of quantum computing, but generally focus far too little on the potential of quantum sensing. We revolutionized the precision of timekeeping with atomic clocks. Quantum inertial sensors could precisely tr
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by brownbat 8y ago
Key: > "Although it would be informally apparent that something had gone wrong..." ie, there's a spectrum of voting attacks. Ballot stuffing is more powerful than ballot burning. If you can target specific districts or vot
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by brownbat 8y ago
Scott Alexander's theory is that having an open forum has become incredibly difficult, maybe tending towards impossible. All the incentives line up to make moderation steadily more costly or steadily more draconian over time, or both:
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by brownbat 8y ago
Bell did amazing research under that monopoly, the downside was that they also buried some of it. They had magnetic storage and an answering machine in the 30s, but were terrified that it might reduce demand for telephone services, so they
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by brownbat 8y ago
I can tear through backs of napkin, but typing a diagram usually stalls me out, even though I'm pretty fast on a keyboard and the specifications seem pretty simple. Is it just my lack of practice, or is diagramming on a keyboard always
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by brownbat 8y ago
> pedestrian injuries/deaths The Dodgers actually got their name from the high rate of pedestrian fatalities in NYC, albeit from trolleys. Traffic has been causing problems in NYC for over a century.
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by brownbat 8y ago
Sites that require phone number verification often block numbers allocated for VoIP services for fear of spammers. YMMV if you've tethered your GV number to a physical device at some point. I've run into this semi-frequently over
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by brownbat 8y ago
That whole series provided some great anti-patterns: https://imgur.com/gallery/YU6EA
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by brownbat 8y ago
Most. Unpatched security issues and erecting barriers to repair are legitimately annoying technical concerns. But you're right that's just a couple on a long list.
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by brownbat 8y ago
> What is the compelling argument against paper ballots? To play devil's advocate... Paper is just a medium. With apologies to Claude Shannon, critical properties of information are best ensured through secure protocols, not by pick
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by brownbat 8y ago
Trying to learn git was a humbling experience. Everything seems so simple and then suddenly you accidentally deleted all your local changes and have a bunch of similar but not identical branches. You get a message saying your head is detach
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by brownbat 8y ago
In practice, cops in a position to arrest people on their beat are generally arresting a series of people for the same thing over and over again, and eventually learn the details of what will satisfy a charge. Mileage will vary based on geo
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by brownbat 8y ago
> plus I don't have to remember what the prices are at all three [grocery] stores I take your point that only the big things are worth sweating, but I feel like local comparison shopping is the sort of thing technology should make e
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by brownbat 8y ago
> By 2020, gas-powered leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and similar equipment [in California] could produce more ozone pollution than all the millions of cars in California combined. Two-stroke engines are that dirty. Cars have become that cle
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by brownbat 8y ago
Planet Money's recent antitrust series is worth checking out to build up a basic footing for these discussions. Standard Oil: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/15/695131832/anti...
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Politics Is the Mind-Killer (2007)(lesswrong.com)
2 points by brownbat 8y ago|1 comments
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Consumers Love Food Delivery. Restaurants and Grocers Hate It(wsj.com)
4 points by brownbat 8y ago|0 comments
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by brownbat 8y ago
I also use tabs as a way to park a series of items for later consideration. It sounds like we really need a stack or queue for links (or we're treating the tab bar as that). But the tab bar eats up resources (UI real estate if not memo
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by brownbat 8y ago
Stitcher is building a garden. I think they are trying to combat the unassailable dominance of Apple.
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by brownbat 8y ago
I like the lottery theory, that's a good add. Studying cognitive biases might feed that for some... it's kind of the study of why everyone is wrong. But maybe there's an axis of novelty or iconoclasm people need too. I don&#x
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by brownbat 8y ago
The explanation of "jackpot" consumers and the marketing of flow were really interesting. It's a rambling piece, but worth drawing those out. I found the theory of why some people believe conspiracies less compelling. Blaming
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by brownbat 8y ago
I think if you have a population of people doing the same search, split randomly across the two sites, things like how long it takes to leave your site through a search result, how far down that result is, and how often people come back to
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by brownbat 8y ago
Does anyone just give you someone else's code and have you write tests and documentation for it?
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by brownbat 8y ago
You received six answers along the lines of "drugs do long term damage." That may be part of the answer, but it feels incomplete. Elite training itself is often unhealthy. And doping techniques vary wildly. There are risks to HGH,

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