kbutler

64 ms·

571.
by kbutler 8y ago
I'm not a fan of war, but many technologies and sciences were developed for military use, everything from mathematics for ballistics, food preservation, thermodynamics, antibiotics, nuclear energy, the lunar program, and GPS. So yes, w
572.
by kbutler 8y ago
An attempted pun on a belt running out of notches as you loosen it to accommodate increased girth, and the Bible Belt leading the obesity statistics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866220/figure
573.
by kbutler 8y ago
The lisp interpreter can operate on s-expressions, but it cannot operate on arbitrary text. The specialization of encoding as s-expressions allows the development of the lisp interpreter. Similarly, a C compiler operates on well-formed C pr
574.
by kbutler 8y ago
Sugar is better than sooty water. They are both C, H, O, but the sugar has useful structure. s-expressions are structured text. Therefore, for some set of problems, s-expressions are "better" (contain more information, are more e
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by kbutler 8y ago
> Also, for actual software engineering, nothing beats a pen and a piece of paper. Sometimes I use pen and paper quite effectively, but between the slowness of writing and the difficulty of editing, I wouldn't describe it as ideal.
576.
by kbutler 8y ago
scott_s is right - the "flavor packs" contain only chemicals extracted from the fruit, so they are still classified as "100% orange juice". But that doesn't mean they are "natural" or guarantee they are s
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by kbutler 8y ago
"not-from-concentrate" just means it was pasteurized, stored, and transported without water being removed and re-added. It still generally goes through aseptic storage for up to a year, which strips out the flavor, which is then a
578.
by kbutler 8y ago
Names are probably the least-interesting thing to study with respect to spelling, because they are completely arbitrary and there is so much variation even in identical-sounding names. How many variants can you find for "Mikayla"?
579.
by kbutler 8y ago
You haven't yet proposed any alternative reality that differs from what you call fallacies. You've nit-picked a few misstatements and cited the benefits of general infrastructure and advocated increased taxes on capital gains, wh
580.
by kbutler 8y ago
> We've previously agreed that capital must have positive returns You had previously written: "Nobody said anything about capital returning less than inflation." I should have said, providers of capital must "expect p
581.
by kbutler 8y ago
Agreed - it wasn't produced by "grinding beef" so it is not "ground beef". Processed, recovered, etc. would be fine. "Lean, Finely Textured Beef" was fine. I wouldn't call "almonds steeped in wa
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by kbutler 8y ago
A gentle nudge to point out the excessive narrowness of that definition of "natural", hoping to broaden the perspective a bit. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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by kbutler 8y ago
Human breast milk naturally contains ammonia, so it does naturally occur in food: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934511/ (More when the breast is inflamed, which can affect willingness to suckl
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by kbutler 8y ago
> (1) made only with ingredients or processes endogenous to living organisms without human intervention or (2) when harvested industrially, the harvest is only mechanical. Well, there goes cooked food.
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by kbutler 8y ago
> In what sense does the citizen of the Central African Republic share any economic interest with the American? "in my preferred world, no-one would be so rich" I'm not sure if you're complaining that the "prefer
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by kbutler 8y ago
Property taxes? At least where I live, land values are assessed annually, and the owner is obligated to pay a percentage of that value. Those tax funds are used for the very improvements mentioned, as well as usage-based utility fees for t
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by kbutler 8y ago
It's focusing on the harm to specific individuals rather than any benefit, thus implying you consider that change a benefit in itself, rather than a necessary harm that enables some other benefit. It's like Hillary Clinton saying
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by kbutler 8y ago
Sounds like oral allergy syndrome, which is actually a response to the proteins in the food: https://www.allergicliving.com/2011/11/30/the-scoop-on-raw-v... (And while I didn't like jackfruit on initial
589.
by kbutler 8y ago
>> the growth rate is naturally a multiple of the labor growth rate > There's nothing natural about it How to say it differently? We've previously agreed that capital must have positive returns (discount rate/time va
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by kbutler 8y ago
No strawman, just an observation that it is far easier to see the excesses of those far more wealthy than us than for us to see our own excesses compared to those far less wealthy. The 10X numbers were just categories, which were inferred b
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by kbutler 8y ago
18-hole golf course for sale: $3,700,000 https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/922-Crazy-Horse-Rd-Hutchinso... That's a pretty low threshold for "too much wealth".
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by kbutler 8y ago
My preferred world is everybody doing better, even if some can afford things that are "obscenely expensive" (good for them!), because I think absolute well-being is more important than relative well-being. How about a world where
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by kbutler 8y ago
> You're spinning all over the place trying not to address that. Except where I addressed it above: "capital is a productivity multiplier, so...the growth rate is naturally a multiple of the labor growth rate...at least as fast
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by kbutler 8y ago
Sorry, switched calculators partway through and got monthly contributions. Originally had it 100x and edited it to 1000x ( blush ). Capital returns more than labor growth rate because of many factors. The most obvious is that capital is a p
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by kbutler 8y ago
You keep reading what you want to see in my statements. You said you'd like theyachtguy to lose business. I contrasted his role starting out as a self-educated hobbyist with a paid model. He has migrated to a full-time job, because he
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by kbutler 8y ago
Rent-seeking has a specific meaning, and that's not it. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp Capital gains represent increase in wealth in the economy, whether taxed preferentially or not. The
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by kbutler 8y ago
Within one working life, by investing 10% of income, I can accumulate wealth of over 100 times annual income while someone who spends 100% of income ends up with 0 wealth. What part of this are you going to make illegal? Individual choices,
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by kbutler 8y ago
> in fact they're being paid to fake that passion So it's better to have professional models in ads being paid to fake that passion rather than self-educated hobbyists? The difference isn't "paid vs not paid", it
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by kbutler 8y ago
Note that excludability was added as a late edit. The original comment just said something like "In my preferred world, no single person would be able to afford a large yacht, but yacht enthusiast clubs could own one." I agree on
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by kbutler 8y ago
I'd like to mention SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Tesla. Regarding the policy choices: Joe and I have equal income. Joe spends his full income every year. I invest 50% of my income. After 40 years of average stock market returns, I have a

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