jkn

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91.
by jkn 13y ago
Birthright citizenship in the U.S. is hardly about a desire to "extend rights and privileges to outsiders". The 1866 law was voted during the Reconstruction after the Civil War, to guarantee civil rights for Blacks [1]. It was lat
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by jkn 13y ago
not a retard "movement" conservative, but a non-Progressive Hey, care to give some details? This is exactly one point of view I've been trying to understand without much success: why people would be non-progressive for inte
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by jkn 13y ago
Interesting but I think you're wrong on point 2: people don't justify drone strikes by saying "the end justifies the means" (at least they should not). This is precisely why people can logically approve of drone strikes
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by jkn 13y ago
Your position seems most inconsistent to me. FAT is a prime example of a technology that is essential for interoperability (yet trivial compared to modern alternatives). Good luck exchanging files using a USB thumb drive formatted with EX
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by jkn 13y ago
This is how a Microsoft exec described the patents when they filed suit against B&N [1] (see [2,3] for details) The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user ex
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by jkn 13y ago
An old argument for going to Mars is that spreading beyond Earth is necessary for survival in the very long term. It makes sense, but it always seems like there are so many other causes, more urgent, to spend our resources on. Musk's a
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by jkn 13y ago
Think about other instances in which the U.S. government "forces" companies into doing things: say a new EPA reg or a new SEC reg. Every such activity is met with a flood of litigation from the companies affected. But here, appar
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by jkn 13y ago
While I'm fond of this type of down-to-earth experiments, I'm curious about the scientific value of waiting for decades to observe the drop falling due to Earth's gravity, versus placing the apparatus in a centrifuge, which I
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by jkn 13y ago
Thanks! These cases seem comparatively insignificant to me. I think patent infringement will be the real "intellectual property" issue with 3D printing. I'm looking forward to a renewed debate on the ethics of having governme
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by jkn 13y ago
You probably meant patent infringement rather than copyright infringement? If not, what would be good examples of copyright infringement made possible through 3D printing?
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by jkn 13y ago
Missing from these considerations is how Internet democratized artists' access to a public. What are the numbers here? E.g. how many bands have a significant following today compared to the old days? And how many bands earn money, mayb
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by jkn 13y ago
I remember that two bugs were filed in Debian for this implementation of /bin/true (one for the slow execution and one for the memory use IIRC) but I cannot find them. Two bugs for 0 lines of code...
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by jkn 13y ago
Am I right that a) applies only to direct communications between the end user and Google's servers? Actually if someone sends an email to my Gmail account using his ISP SMTP server, is the connection between the two SMTP servers likely
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by jkn 13y ago
All I'm saying is that from a moral point of view, it makes a difference whether you shoot someone for fun (i.e. they get shot because you wanted the fun) or for a better reason (e.g. the person was sentenced to death). This is quite
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by jkn 13y ago
Of course my examples cannot fit the ethics of everybody, there is no absolute ethics. That does not make the examples invalid. They went meant to help the reader understand my point of view, not necessarily share it. I won't advocate
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by jkn 13y ago
Ethics is not just about the consequences of an action. Other factors such as motivations are also important. I think it is sad but ethically acceptable to kill an ant colony in my house, yet I don't think it is OK for children to go i
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by jkn 13y ago
This financial flexibility certainly helps, but Google is hardly the only tech company with loads of cash. Consider Apple. They have famously high margins and insane cash reserves, projected to grow beyond $170 billion in 2013[1]. And to
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by jkn 13y ago
using technical exploits to gain unauthorised access to civilian machines is a violation of law I'm OK with whistleblowing of illegal actions performed by secret services (enough of this sh*t!). Though I don't know whether he&#x
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by jkn 13y ago
Members of the European parliament are elected directly by the people, and their mandate is only for work in the European parliament. Most of them have no insider knowledge of what happens in the ministries of individual countries. To give
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by jkn 13y ago
For once, an article that defends privacy while recognizing the non-obviousness of the issue. That makes it unusually convincing, but there is still one part I find weak: Investigating the nothing-to-hide argument a little more deeply, we
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by jkn 13y ago
Could you be more specific? AFAIK there are no ads in Google Talk/Hangouts, Calendar and Contacts. Google is known for making the vast majority of its money from ads, but definitely not for putting ads in all of their products. Even if they
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by jkn 13y ago
You make me curious. Could you provide some examples of the benefits of Objective-C in this context? (and how it compares to Android and its libraries).
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by jkn 13y ago
whether regulation of procreative behavior of people is our business at all That's the question of whether genetic screening should be made mandatory in some cases... I don't think so, for the reasons you mentioned. But I'm more intereste
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by jkn 13y ago
Well I was actually thinking about mutations :) Let's consider a simplified model, where there are only two different bases (A and G instead of A, T, G, C) and assume that the probabilities of mutations A->G and G->A are the same. L
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by jkn 13y ago
Totally! I think your example is a good illustration of the difficult questions we will face as genetic screening becomes more and more practical and affordable, thanks a lot for sharing. (I can't help but wonder what you would say to a doc
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by jkn 13y ago
I agree on most of your points. A gene that is a burden under present conditions might prove a gift in a different environment or against a future disease, and anyway nobody should choose for someone else if they can have children or not. H
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by jkn 13y ago
I know next to nothing about the dynamics of gene transmission (if someone does please shed some light), but it seems quite obvious that the less evolutionary pressure you have against a gene, the more prevalent it will become. My intuition
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by jkn 13y ago
The eugenic view I was referring to is not saying People should not be treated because it would spoil the gene pool but rather We certainly want to treat diseases, but this will spoil the gene pool unless we prevent the spread of bad gen
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by jkn 13y ago
It shows the value of rare genetic disorders for biological and medical research, but I'm not sure it speaks for or against eugenics, it's a complex question... Look at it from the point of view of an eugenics proponent: this disease is a g
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by jkn 13y ago
This is a good summary of a sad trend at Google. They fall from high, so we feel it unusually strongly. I still hope these are defensive moves as Google reacts to perceived threats from Facebook and others. I still hope they will eventually

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