camccann

50 ms·

421.
by camccann 17y ago
Google pays for internet connection to their servers. Google's users pay for their own internet connections, in order to have access to websites (such as Google). Calling Google a free-loader when not only is it already paying for what it u
422.
by camccann 17y ago
One thing you're missing is that for the most part there is no substantial competitive market for broadband internet in the USA. For many people, their choices are "put up with what the ISP offers" or "use dial-up". As for the necessity, th
423.
by camccann 17y ago
Which is why the telecoms would fight anything that might actually force them to compete even harder than they're fighting net neutrality regulations. Large, entrenched corporations only support "free markets" insofar as it makes convenient
424.
by camccann 17y ago
I've probably gotten most of my fat intake from milk at times; I have a home espresso machine and use whole milk for lattes, and if I'm really busy I tend to both skip meals and drink lots of coffee. Definitely a pathological case, though.
425.
by camccann 17y ago
It's not about you telling other people what to do, it's about picking someone else who will be telling people what to do. Nothing you do will change the fact that somebody will be selected; all you can do is influence the choice. Unl
426.
by camccann 17y ago
There's a full-size version of the image on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcrowe/4002050596/sizes/o/
427.
by camccann 17y ago
I think there currently is precious little in this whole debate that isn't politicized. Yes, which is all the more reason to call out the bullshit artists when they're trying to make things worse. Just throwing your hands up and ignoring
428.
by camccann 17y ago
Hm, someone with no relevant knowledge or experience but impressive-sounding credentials, with a clear political bias, who's accusing everyone else of being equally biased, and trying to cast doubt on reasonably well understood science beca
429.
by camccann 17y ago
I don't think the global warming movement is a religion, but there are some fun social parallels to the middle ages church. Cap-and-trade has the look of indulgences and the treatment of heretics. Sure, if you really want to view everythi
430.
by camccann 17y ago
Disregarding the... obvious slant and loaded language of the site, between this and Part 1 of the post it's pretty depressing the disregard for science apparently displayed by this book. I enjoyed Freakonomics, but this really lowers my res
431.
by camccann 17y ago
As a resident of Michigan, I can't help but note the near-constant throbbing red blot that is Detroit. If anything, I'm surprised it didn't look worse than that.
432.
by camccann 17y ago
As an aside... have you ever stopped to think about the Quantum Immortality idea? I mean, really think about the implications. It's probably the most fundamentally horrifying idea I've ever seriously entertained.
433.
by camccann 17y ago
Having a degree makes you look good in the job market, compared to someone with the same skills but no degree, so you go get one. Good choice! Now, many other people wisely do the same. The more people have degrees, the more pressure is app
434.
by camccann 17y ago
The trick, with something like jQuery, is to learn enough to begin to understand why you're lucky you didn't have to implement it yourself. At that point you stop, thank the deity of your choice for the existence of people who abstract away
435.
by camccann 17y ago
I submit that had the lawsuit not started in May, then we would not have had the big announcements from Informix, Oracle and IBM. And during that explosion we would have seen dirty tricks from Microsoft to leverage their browser market int
436.
by camccann 17y ago
How about some Category Theory? That's used in the theory behind type systems, if memory serves me. On the other hand, it's a field that even mathematicians refer to as "general abstract nonsense"...
437.
by camccann 17y ago
You are presumably reading this on a computer you own , and drive to work on a car you own. You can increase the dignity of a number of people by selling both and donating the proceeds to a worthwhile charity. ( I can think of few things m
438.
by camccann 17y ago
The only effective alternative to a boycott is mass civil disobedience, which is likely to be even more uncomfortable than a boycott for the average person. The copyright lobby has long since surrendered the moral high ground to the "pirate
439.
by camccann 17y ago
This statement seems somewhat dangerous to me. If the body slows down because of lack of resources, I'm willing to bet that, like has been observed in animals, fertility will also drop off - you don't reproduce when resources are scarce.
440.
by camccann 17y ago
Strangely, during the development of the robot, several members of the team were plagued by persistent, unexplained nightmares. An official spokesman for iRobot attributed the nightmares to high stress and said that the affected researchers
441.
by camccann 17y ago
Articles like this always leave me torn with, on one hand, a deep fascination with the power, potential, and elegance of Haskell, yet, on the other hand, a nagging feeling that I'll never be quite smart enough to actually understand it...
442.
by camccann 17y ago
Understanding modern functional programming via pure lambda calculus is somewhat like understanding C++ via raw assembly. Which is to say, you'll have a great low-level understanding to build on but a long, long road ahead. It is a lot of
443.
by camccann 17y ago
Well, if you really want clarity... Technically speaking, "gender" refers to the set of distinctive features of entities regarded as "male" or "female", including differences in genetics, physical structure, instinctive and learned behavi
444.
by camccann 17y ago
Whether or not the science is beyond dispute is irrelevant. How does this follow? If a scientific question is largely unresolved, we don't even have a basis upon which to evaluate decisions yet. Generally, disputed science never even touc
445.
by camccann 17y ago
But they may reward externalizing different kinds of costs, and the relative rewards may be larger or smaller than in other systems. The question is what provides the best results (and, for that matter, how to define "best").
446.
by camccann 17y ago
I like how the article goes from implying that these books were already easy enough to access ("...that would otherwise rot in such obscure libraries as Harvard, Oxford, and the University of California...") to complaining that Google will
447.
by camccann 17y ago
Alternative theory: Many people of the type he talks about 1) were lucky to be in the right place at the right time, 2) had strong, effective organizations working for them, 3) were smart and competent enough to make effective use of #1 and
448.
by camccann 17y ago
You could make a strong argument they did. Next and Apple is often cited as a case where the bought company took over the buyer. The Disney/Pixar deal might count as well. After a falling-out between the companies due in large part to Dis
449.
by camccann 17y ago
Bah, why is he just complaining? A true open-source hacker would charge blindly forward and implement something that duplicates functionality of existing projects but with a different (and unique) set of deficiencies and bugs, is subtly inc
450.
by camccann 17y ago
People can get addicted to their rating, creating "karma whores" and the like. A counterpoint to this: If a karma system reliably rewards beneficial behavior, "karma whores" can potentially create a lot of real value for more casual membe

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