jacobmoe

9 ms·

31.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Funny that "computer" was originally a metaphor applied to the machine from the human occupation.
32.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
No one thinks that computers have free will. Not yet anyway. The idea that the conscious mind isn't the one making decisions seems to have implications for free will. Can you explain why it's misunderstanding of the concept?
33.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
> Closed wall content is bad for everyone. You said that twice. It's not bad for subscribers. There's a good argument to be made that ad-driven content is bad for everyone. In fact there's an argument to be made that ad-dr
34.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Bet I'm not unique in getting a 504 error.
35.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
I wonder if it would actually be better for the world to keep moving towards a common culture, assuming that culture is open enough to absorb the best parts of other cultures. There's a sense amongst the Canadian cultural elite that Ca
36.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
I partly agree with this, but also find myself addicted to my phone and worried that it's not great for my mental health. It's true that you can set your watch to collective freakouts over change. It's also true that some new
37.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
English is one of the official languages of Kenya. I doubt it'll come at the expense of learning English.
38.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
True, but people also forget that new infrastructure, when well timed, can accelerate growth and expand the base. New York should know that more than any place. How do we know when to invest in infrastructure? I'd say that the affordab
39.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
I think the point is that west coast cities are willing to invest in their systems, not just live off of what past generations built. Here in NYC we've been living off the investments of past generations for a long time, not even maint
40.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Is there any real difference between those who think the US is uniquely terrible in every way and those who think it is uniquely great in every way?
41.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Can students outside the US name Indian states or Chinese provinces? I assumed that was a general "west not thinking about the east enough" problem.
42.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
I agree it's a disappointing article, but your second point is answered: “You can’t bring manufacturing back because of those webs, you would have to bring the entire community back,”
43.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
That's odd because I've read/heard a lot of reporting that describes China in broadly the same terms you just did, including on NPR. The New York Times just did a series on the rise of China and how it defied all expectations
44.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
I don't have confidence in bug-free software, just in software that is bug-free enough to be better than the status quo. Systematic bugs can be fixed systematically. Humans will never not be too easily distracted, easily angered, easil
45.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
You have it exactly backwards. You will _know_ what the vehicle will do because it will be programmed to do it. Meanwhile, that other vehicle could do anything because the driver might be texting, might have fallen asleep, might be in a fit
46.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
I think the response you got pointing out that "disorder" is a poor approximation of the actual physical law is the best explanation but it's probably dissatisfying. I like this analogy from Sean Carroll, explaining the diffe
47.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
The energy radiated from the earth is in a higher entropy state than the energy it absorbs. If the theory that biological beings defied the second law were true, you'd expect the opposite to be the case. Life is a kind of machine that
48.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Considering that the country seems to be getting farther apart when it comes to the culture war, this news is pretty surprising.
49.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Last time I visited Austin I went to the state capital and was pretty surprised to see how history was told on the monuments there. I don't remember the wording exactly, but there were references to the "war of northern aggression
50.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
The conversation here is interesting to contrast with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18403497 .
51.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
TIL I'm a narcissist. Not how I expected this morning to go. I think these kind of categories that come from psychology are useful and also dangerous. Our innate tendency towards heuristics makes it difficult to talk about this stuff,
52.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Montreal winters are a bit extreme. That said, the top of Mont Royal after a fresh snow fall is a magical place.
53.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Oh I'm not making excuses for it. The commenter I responded to noted that NYC's political dysfunction makes things difficult. I'm just noting that New York State's political dysfunction is also to blame.
54.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
I'm not sure there's a better answer than "it seemed like a good idea at the time." The problem (as we saw in the recent primary here) is that the person who is actually in charge of the system - the governor - is able t
55.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Maintaining our mass transit is (stupidly) a state responsibility, to be fair.
56.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
Oh, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
57.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
> No one should ever - EVER - change because of someone else's opinion of them. That's ridiculous. Every one of us changes our behavior because of someone else's opinions of us. It's the central mechanism for how huma
58.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
The noise is annoying, but as someone who jogs daily in NYC, I'm just hoping my lungs survive long enough to see the end of the combustion engine age. It's obviously better than it was but I run by trucks billowing blue exhaust da
59.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
> Live, or your life will pass you by, and it's bybyes. Your life will pass you by regardless, but that's beside the point. It's weird, I see it just the opposite. The younger generation is adapting well to a radically cha
60.
by jacobmoe 8y ago
The horse is very much alive, despite the beatings it constantly takes from people who are incapable of seeing the value of a diverse workplace.

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