hugh3

62 ms·

691.
by hugh3 15y ago
If I drop ten dollars on the ground, the person who finds it doesn't know they've been the recipient of someone else's generosity (rather than someone else's clumsiness) and hence they're less likely to pass that generosity on.
692.
by hugh3 15y ago
The good thing about random altruism, i.e. giving stuff to people regardless of whether they need it or not, is that it doesn't encourage welfare dependency. When you give free stuff to "those in need", you have to be extremely careful no
693.
by hugh3 15y ago
The admissions guide to your nearest major university.
694.
by hugh3 15y ago
Reading things like this is like playing Chinese whispers ("Telephone" in US-ish). As opposed to the usual situation where the writer knows what the article is about and is struggling to explain it to the audience, in the average New Scient
695.
by hugh3 15y ago
Your profile says you're a medical student. Are you a physicist too?
696.
by hugh3 15y ago
Actually I was reading an article (I can't find it now) about that Qantas A380 engine explosion, and it said that this was a genuine problem in that situation. Once the engine blew up, there were dozens and dozens of different errors poppin
697.
by hugh3 15y ago
Read ZAMM if you like, but just treat it as a novel rather than as a serious work of philosophy.
698.
by hugh3 15y ago
My preferred solution is this: 1. Every year, the US Government figures out how much money it wants to spend. 2. Then, it figures out what the (flat) tax rate would need to be in order to rustle up that much money. 3. Then, it sets the tax
699.
by hugh3 15y ago
Well this is a difference between an A and a B. Or rather it's the difference between an AAA and an AA+, because grade inflation in the credit rating world is even worse than grade inflation in academia. But there's a logical flaw here. Eve
700.
by hugh3 15y ago
He's a bit of a partisan, but in this case I think Krugman's analysis is basically correct, that real questions of debt sustainability aren't +/- $4trillion in the next 10 years, but longer-term insufficiently funded liabilities in healthc
701.
by hugh3 15y ago
Uhh, neither. The Treasury claims it was a "mistake", but personally I can't see how anyone could possibly still consider US bonds to have the highest possible rating. However, if for some reason you did think that, then Hanlon's Razor wo
702.
by hugh3 15y ago
I hate it when students whine about the unfairness of their lousy grades and how they really deserved a higher one. It's even worse when the Treasury Department does it.
703.
by hugh3 15y ago
ZAMM is a terrible introduction to philosophy. Fun story, bullshit philosophy. I'm not actually sure whether the author believes this "metaphysics of quality" stuff or whether he's just putting it into the mouth of the character. If you wan
704.
by hugh3 15y ago
"You are gravely mistaken if you take hackers as downright nerds. Actually some of our favourite and insanely popular iOS hackers and jailbreakers were spotted at DEF CON 19 in Las Vegas. Doesn’t make sense for a couple of nerds to be hang
705.
by hugh3 15y ago
While I've never used Freshdirect, I can't imagine it's quite as fast and easy to browse products there as it is to just visually scan across a huge wall of products. That's the advantage for the consumer. The advantages are bigger for the
706.
by hugh3 15y ago
I dunno. I think Clarkson made using the Fiesta for storming a beach a platoon Royal Marines seem a lot easier than it actually is.
707.
by hugh3 15y ago
Remember, debtors prisons in our own culture predate things like central credit reporting bureaus and garnisheeing laws. Without these things, what's the disincentive to not pay back your loans?
708.
by hugh3 15y ago
Vodaphone and Vonage both ring very, very, very faint bells in my mind I'm afraid that's a problem with your mind, not with Vodafone. Wikipedia sez: Vodafone Group plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, Unite
709.
by hugh3 15y ago
What we want to create is wealth, not jobs. Ideally, what we want to create is opportunities for people to create wealth via their own labour. This is the good sort of "job creation". The bad sort of "job creation" is where you create non-w
710.
by hugh3 15y ago
What's the point you're making by pasting in this quote? That we should bring back debtors' prisons?
711.
by hugh3 15y ago
That clip shows that he hates Christians, not that he loves science. It's not even accurate (to the extent that any counterfactual can be considered accurate). If Christianity had never existed, would that have prevented the fall of the Rom
712.
by hugh3 15y ago
To me, Neil always seems like he's talking to children. This is great for children. But as an adult who already knows 95% of what he's talking about it comes across as a bit grating. Carl Sagan could tell you what you already knew, and you'
713.
by hugh3 15y ago
Although I guess you could say that for comments on most article on CNN. I would say that for most comments on the internet .
714.
by hugh3 15y ago
But this is how arguing about the law so often works. It's not clear what the law should say in a new case, so we make analogies to cases where there's precedent. The question falls into the general class of problems "If you provide the too
715.
by hugh3 15y ago
Oh purleez. There's only one, and it's in context.
716.
by hugh3 15y ago
Programmers in the category "adequately competent" tend to self-identify as "great", so it is at least a consistent use of language. And is it any wonder? Threads like this are filled with comments saying things like "80% of programmers can
717.
by hugh3 15y ago
And as feedback. Students need to know whether or not they're doing well. In some subjects it's obvious to the student whether they're doing well, but in others it's not.
718.
by hugh3 15y ago
And it actually might mean that by questioning what is the desired outcome, you complete the task a lot faster or perhaps even determine that working on task X is actually a waste of time for everyone. Or it might mean that you think
719.
by hugh3 15y ago
To save me the trouble of reading an entire book just to get the one point I'm interested in, why does the author think that achievements in video games are a bad idea?
720.
by hugh3 15y ago
Grading (which I'll call marking for the rest of this comment) has three purposes, and you've only described one -- motivation. The second is to let third parties (parents, universities, potential employers) know how well a student has done

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