lukifer

68 ms·

631.
by lukifer 7y ago
Yes, the perverse incentive of the oil lobby is transparently staggering. Even if one is charitable, that the lobbyists believe their own talking points, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends up
632.
by lukifer 7y ago
I suspect that's a product of anything that becomes political: whether it's climate change or border security, the incentives are more towards theater than results, creating an attack surface for economic exploitation. At this poi
633.
by lukifer 7y ago
> Funny how Guthrie's communist, anti-borders, anthem got co-opted by nationalists so far that they don't even understand the meaning There is a rich tradition in classical liberalism on the universality of land, predating the
634.
by lukifer 7y ago
I accept the reality of global warming (I'm almost a single-issue voter on the subject), but I look at it from a Bayesian point of view: if we compared two universes, one where AGW was real, and one where the scientific consensus was m
635.
by lukifer 7y ago
I'm wary of "testing theater" (in the spirit of "security theater"); but I've come to think of testing as similar to two-factor authentication: it doesn't guarantee correctness, but it does reduce the like
636.
by lukifer 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy
637.
by lukifer 7y ago
For context, David Graeber is an anarchist anthropologist who has written extensively about economics. His two best-known works on the subject: - https://www.amazon.com/Debt-First-5-000-Years/dp/1612191290/ -
638.
by lukifer 7y ago
I 100% can hit the F-keys by feel. The important distinction is that I can feel for the button boundaries before I push; the fact that touches are always impactful, and it's impossible to add space between actions, prevents retraining
639.
by lukifer 7y ago
I consider it a downgrade, at least in the sense that I had something I liked (F-keys) that it's impossible to get back. My two most common use-cases for the previous F-keys (changing brightness, music/sound controls) are precisel
640.
by lukifer 7y ago
I don't think it's just the "rules" for a Chinese audience (though that doesn't help); I think it's the economics of making movies primarily for a global audience, rather than a particular language, culture, or
641.
by lukifer 7y ago
I only recently learned the history of "anti-littering" marketing campaigns [0], conceived to push responsibility for waste onto consumers rather than producers, who were switching from metals and glass to much cheaper (but no lon
642.
by lukifer 7y ago
This is the crux of it; inevitably, government institutions and individuals in important positions are perfectly capable of quietly trading favors and taking action off-books. And in the other direction, private citizens and groups can have
643.
by lukifer 7y ago
I'm reminded of the dodge that religious institutions have achieved. In exchange for tax-exempt status, they are forbidden from explicit political stances and endorsements; yet in practice, many churches are highly influential in the
644.
by lukifer 7y ago
While I agree, I think it’s worth teasing apart the “They” in this line of thinking. The conspiracy/Illuminati narratives imply a singular, unified cabal of power, which is a very difficult thing to achieve. But I think is more likely,
645.
by lukifer 7y ago
The "reasonable person" standard [0] is deeply interwoven into our legal infrastructure. Yet as you say, courts/judges seem deeply reluctant to apply this standard to the police (there may be selection bias at play; we don&#x
646.
by lukifer 7y ago
To some extent, every currency[0] requires collective faith. Paper money backed by our bizarre Federal Reserve / QE system isn't much less absurd than anything in the crypto world, and that's money that can't be programm
647.
by lukifer 7y ago
I'm pretty sure even the latest and greatest readers take longer than 5ms. ;) And the idea is to mimic the persistence of a physical object; flipping the reader over is roughly equivalent to turning a page. But I certainly wouldn'
648.
by lukifer 7y ago
TIL, thanks!
649.
by lukifer 7y ago
I'm more of a fan of the Nook and Kobo series (ability to sideload DRM-less ePubs is non-negotiable). But I like the less-is-more approach for e-readers; if anything, I'd prefer they had even more spartan/minimalist UIs, mimi
650.
by lukifer 7y ago
I drive a Gen-1 Volt (which I love), and it's as sporty and sedan-y as a car can get while still being a hatchback. There's no reason that a non-dorky design can't be made in this form factor.
651.
by lukifer 7y ago
Interesting, I wouldn't have expected that either. I wonder if the "some people get more votes" concern disappears if reframed from "vote for you who approve", to "vote yes or no for each candidate". In a
652.
by lukifer 7y ago
> "Pass through each other" is not the clearest wording. It was not, mea culpa. :D
653.
by lukifer 7y ago
The distances are so vast, that essentially, yes. Think about two sailors in small boats, crossing an ocean in opposite directions, and how unlikely it would be that their boats collide. Now multiply that by several orders of magnitude. One
654.
by lukifer 7y ago
This is a problem with democracy in general; while constitutional constraints theoretically limit the damage the majority can do, in practice "the fox guards the henhouse" with regard to reifying those constraints. One can easily
655.
by lukifer 7y ago
The vast majority of the stars will pass through each other; what I'm curious about is what happens at the galactic cores, and how many solar systems will end up being swallowed by the super-massive black holes at the center of each ga
656.
by lukifer 7y ago
Conventional wisdom is that we will have almost zero collisions between celestial bodies due to the vast distances involved; but it seems plausible that the gravity of a massive celestial body could disrupt orbit, enough to alter seasons or
657.
by lukifer 7y ago
> Third parties are not centrists They can't be, game-theoretically, in our present voting ecosystem. The very premise is to capture voting preferences more accurately, such that broad consensus moderates become possible, and the sp
658.
by lukifer 7y ago
2nded for Approval. While it may be suboptimal at capturing preferences, it has the advantages of being easy to count, and easy to explain: whoever gets the most votes wins, end of story. Most importantly, effectively nothing changes for th
659.
by lukifer 7y ago
> People just don't know how valuable this data actually is. Jaron Lanier has an interesting plan for renegotiating the "paying for services with data" relationship we now have with tech companies: https://www.n
660.
by lukifer 7y ago
That's what I want to know as well. This github[0] mentions the sensor as a standalone item, and this appears to be the manufacturer[1]. This[2] is the closest I could find for purchase (24GHz, as opposed to Soli's 60GHz, and near

More ›