jtheory

17 ms·

121.
by jtheory 12y ago
Is there any useful argument to be had around this, for pragmatic purposes? No one disagrees about what Java is doing here (that I know of). Naming is a problem if people are writing bugs due to the poor explanation. But I can't thin
122.
by jtheory 12y ago
You're not making a serious effort to guess at what difference it might make, though. Example (this is actually true!) -- I have a life-long inflammation in both eyes that started in one eye when I was about 5, and eventually spread to
123.
by jtheory 12y ago
The whole point is that the model is bad. The context is that it seems intuitively safe to teach a powerful AI that "any amount of torture is always worse than giving someone a speck of dust in the eye". Actually following that ru
124.
by jtheory 12y ago
That doesn't make sense, though -- info hazards are not normally things you might just think of, or we'd be screwed either way; "whatever you do, don't think of a pink elephant", right? Toss out silly ideas like t
125.
by jtheory 12y ago
Right -- gut morality is strongly based on small, local interactions. If someone invites you over for dinner and they have a live calf there, nursing at its mother, and they're intending to slaughter it in front of you, it's not t
126.
by jtheory 12y ago
Or maybe -- he posted something that the fact of his posting it revealed he actually intuitively knew it was bunk. See "Belief in belief", which is right near the beginning of the first sequence.... http://lesswrong.c
127.
by jtheory 12y ago
I don't have inside knowledge, but yeah, it seems extremely likely -- the sequences have been available for years, after all.
128.
by jtheory 12y ago
Sure. That is, my understanding of reality is the same, regardless. I think the goals of "The Brights" are laudable, generally. But I didn't register on their website, and wouldn't really want my photo and identify fea
129.
by jtheory 12y ago
I don't think I could bring myself to be a "Bright" for that reason (see the-brights.net)... Vague counterpoint -- this is an ebook collecting essays from lesswrong.com, which is a bit more subtle as names go.
130.
by jtheory 12y ago
These issues are complicated to navigate for the midwives as well -- it's hard for them to know exactly who's hoping for more support, and who's really in need of an alternative option. > More importantly, some mothers jus
131.
by jtheory 12y ago
I'm honestly totally in favor of breast-feeding, when it's a reasonable option. I don't want anyone to avoid breast-feeding because they think (as was believed for quite a while, actually) that formula is better. But this
132.
by jtheory 12y ago
Similar here -- there are plenty of huge pitfalls there, if we don't die; but that's not the same thing as saying the pitfalls are insurmountable, and I value things that get me thinking without just hitting "oh, that's
133.
by jtheory 12y ago
Negative feedback on the internet is generally pretty disastrous. People like to jump on the bandwagon when someone "evil" is identified, based sometimes on the flimsiest of evidence. Then, surprise -- if you have millions of &qu
134.
by jtheory 12y ago
Almost anything can be used as an instrument; some easier than others (blowing over the top of a bottle), but just about everything makes noises that can then be organized, modified, etc. :) You can make surprisingly complicated music just
135.
by jtheory 12y ago
This is one of those learned things that becomes inborn , I think. I have a few things I'm pretty good at, and I'll pick up & try anything, because it's fun. Most of the music I make is improvised. And I've been p
136.
by jtheory 12y ago
Interesting -- I'd be curious to see what actual musicians would say. It really depends on the type of music you're building with it, I'd say. I'm not primarily a keyboardist, but I use them; in this case it would surel
137.
by jtheory 12y ago
Eh, "at the forefront" doesn't mean "the front-runner" or even "the leading X in (ill-defined category)", just sort of "in that group" near the front.
138.
by jtheory 12y ago
These aren't quite real arguments, though. (1) Adding up: some people surely spend more than I do. But I only actually buy things maybe 8 times a week. It doesn't actually take 10 seconds to enter a PIN, but even granted that --
139.
by jtheory 12y ago
I have plenty of similar stories. It's been a frustrating experience; I know parents who've had really intelligent, insightful advice about nonviolent ways to raise kids, and deal with difficult situations. But I just can't s
140.
by jtheory 12y ago
This doesn't feel like an accurate label, though. The problem is that the "standard" medical childbirth has flaws that are only being addressed in a haphazard way, only in some places. The "flat on her back" positio
141.
by jtheory 12y ago
This is fascinating, but (it's important to point out) still very much preliminary even for horses, and then applying any conclusions about foals to autism in human babies is another huge leap that may not pan out into useful informati
142.
by jtheory 12y ago
This just seems to be a collection of short videos showing how to form guitar chords. It's not a very effective or interesting way to learn chords (it's just the videos; not even chord diagrams), and there's no clever tech
143.
by jtheory 12y ago
Quite true; and it's oddly frustrating to me to notice how much time the pre-kids version of me wasted. There should be a way to borrow someone else's kids for 6 months or so, force yourself to carve the waste out of your life...
144.
by jtheory 12y ago
Your point is related, though. Your side projects cannot become your main income if you have no side projects. To make time for side projects, you need to weigh the importance of having them, to you, and trim out other less important things
145.
by jtheory 12y ago
This is about more than the rate, of course, but I was surprised to see that kind of cost for just crossing the Canadian border. For comparison -- my home carrier in France is SFR. In the UK or in the Netherlands (I haven't been elsewh
146.
by jtheory 12y ago
Sigh... I'm on a Lenovo laptop. I opened the link and saw this in large type: Do the test with Internet Explorer or Chrome first. And I'm in... Firefox. I get the "probably not" image in both FF and Chrome now, but d
147.
by jtheory 12y ago
We use them; I haven't had MS Office installed since... I'm not sure, but I think it's been more than a decade now. I used OpenOffice for ages, then LibreOffice. For work we MS Office or LO for MS docs from elsewhere. LO is
148.
by jtheory 12y ago
Neurosurgery attempting to treat mental illness is called "pschosurgery". It tends to be a bit chilling to read about, and not really popular these days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosurgery
149.
by jtheory 12y ago
Only while the sun is up; and even then, the sky is there , but you actually look at everything else for the vast majority of the time. If the ground is as bright as the sky -- for example, if it's covered in snow or water that reflec
150.
by jtheory 12y ago
Patients Know Best -- REMOTE ONLY. At present we all work core hours in GMT (give or take a few hours), but please get in touch anyway if you're elsewhere and might be able to anchor a group of developers in your part of the world. We

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