guscost

39 ms·

361.
by guscost 6y ago
You make good points. But the fact remains that Twitter is a viable product only because it is granted special immunity from legal consequences for publishing, immunity that you or I would not enjoy if we were to publish the very same con
362.
by guscost 6y ago
Why not put a protocol in the public domain and let service providers implement it, like email? Is there something about broadcast communication that makes impartiality or neutrality impossible? Even if the broadcast protocol is based on fo
363.
by guscost 6y ago
> deny people their civil liberties Are you saying that a special immunity from prosecution, granted to particular businesses, is a civil liberty? Or is this some kind of “freedom from being offended/misinformed” newspeak? I can’t t
364.
by guscost 6y ago
You could technically set up a mesh network and bypass the ISP too. I don’t think that argument is aging well, since it depends on some essential distinction between “telephone wire” type infrastructure and “server farm” or “installed base”
365.
by guscost 6y ago
Agreed. But if the alternatives (maybe a size/reach threshold above which the laws change?) were to fail, I would rather see every online community become 4chan, than actual violent war. Hopefully things turn out better than either ext
366.
by guscost 6y ago
Is it time for Twitter to be considered a utility? ISPs evolved from “online service providers” which themselves evolved from “bulletin board systems”, and if you consider an ISP to be a utility today, then there was a point where that kind
367.
by guscost 6y ago
The restrictions prevent me from buying a reasonable dose at the store. How am I supposed to do it, go around licking bus seats? I don’t know anyone positive in town, and asking in public forums has not gotten results.
368.
by guscost 6y ago
Since the alternative is leading us toward actual violent war, I say “make HN choose between moderation and immunity too, if we must” without hesitation. “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the a
369.
by guscost 6y ago
Why not allow healthy people to inoculate with a reasonable dose of the virus so they can control the timing, and then self-quarantine? I would have done that months ago if it was allowed. Even if it only has a partial chance of conferring
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The Great Barrington Declaration(gbdeclaration.org)
3 points by guscost 6y ago|0 comments
371.
by guscost 6y ago
It is not only a question of efficacy, it is also a question of whether allowing the incremental march toward tyranny to continue will lead to a worse outcome than not wearing the masks. “Deadly disease is always the bigger risk” is a naive
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by guscost 6y ago
Kanye would probably prefer your response be "asshole", rather than this smug nonsense which amounts to: "Your opinion is invalid because you have a mental illness." https://guscost.com/2016/03/
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by guscost 6y ago
Yes, this means you should measure your blood Vitamin D and supplement whenever it shows up as deficient (much more likely in the winter). Yes, correlation does not prove causation, and yes, the recent randomized controlled study[0] may hav
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by guscost 6y ago
I'm pretty sure it was also sending a message to other companies with big apps - stick to the agreement or we will retaliate. On the other side, keep in mind that Epic is also an enormous company with an army of lawyers. They probabl
375.
by guscost 6y ago
Following up if anyone finds this: In general, when you do upgrade your gear, the closer it is to the source, the more of a difference it will make. So for an acoustic instrument, prefer to upgrade the instrument first, then treat the room
376.
by guscost 6y ago
If this team convinces the insurance folks that their design really is safer, and so their premiums should be low enough to make small reactors competitive, it could be a huge breakthrough.
377.
by guscost 6y ago
Same to you. Hopefully things work out for the best, no matter who is right.
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by guscost 6y ago
The best way to get that information quickly is to expose volunteers to infection, which is admittedly an ethical lapse, but one nowhere near as bad as what actually happened (“spread panic and write off the nursing home residents!”) in my
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by guscost 6y ago
I just described a modern strategy that includes tactical quarantine and isolation! What we have done instead (spew absurd panic from every mainstream institution for the better part of a year, while sending kids home from school and COVID
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by guscost 6y ago
You are making a good argument for the initial lockdown, not this continuing insanity. We should have started challenge trials on day one , I would have been first in line to try this new respiratory virus (and I did sign up to participate
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by guscost 6y ago
Very well argued. Here’s my rant from May. I also go waaay out on a limb to claim that this episode will be the final nail in the coffin of what we know today as “science”, so YMMV: https://guscost.com/2020/05/12&#
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by guscost 6y ago
“Quite likely”? That’s a heck of a claim to base on zero evidence. In fact this press release appears to contradict it: > Symptoms affecting the central nervous system occurred in at least 0.04% of people with SARS and in 0.2% of those
383.
by guscost 6y ago
You are correct - for an average person, fear of COVID-19 will cause quite a lot more brain damage than the disease itself: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26651008/
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by guscost 6y ago
What’s your point?
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by guscost 6y ago
This world of yours where there are presumably only “real intellectuals” in one camp, and a plague of “hack pseudo-scholars” in the other, is simply absurd. It makes no sense to me so I cannot comment on it. I could go into how I feel about
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by guscost 6y ago
You really think that this phenomenon only happens on one side of the political aisle? I can’t relate to any worldview where that situation is possible.
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by guscost 6y ago
You make it sound like it is uncommon for a think tank to publish research that helps its backers and allies. “The example of the day” (provided by NPR?) is just one small feature of a much larger landscape.
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by guscost 6y ago
Every company at this level has ties to the executive branch, and much more. Remember last year when the DoD wrote Microsoft a $10 billion check?
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by guscost 6y ago
Nah, all that Microsoft is trying to imply is that Oracle doesn’t give a shit about security engineering, and that the goofy geopolitical business alone does nothing for users. It’s plausible.
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by guscost 6y ago
Yep, internalizing the idea that “better gear won’t allow me to skip the hard work” has taken time, but it is so true. Gear can make certain tasks easier, and it grants access to a bigger/different palette, but that stuff is nearly ort

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