mdiesel

14 ms·

61.
by mdiesel 5y ago
The difference in intelligence between an egg and a chicken aren't just reaction times. Basic cellular life might respond to stimuli in a way we can call "pain", but they'll never understand it the same way. The differen
62.
by mdiesel 5y ago
I've been fascinated listening to a podcast on the History of Rome (highly recommend). Rome wasn't built in a day, but also the fall of the empire was a period of about 300 years during which Rome itself was still called the &quot
63.
by mdiesel 5y ago
Borders are still disputed today, so any issues that are relevant would also exist in the OSM maps. I'd heard that Google shows differing borders depending on where you're viewing from, not sure if OSM do the same. Of course there
64.
by mdiesel 5y ago
For those interested in what the gp could be referring to: There is a Wikipedia article and other sources on the "not proven" verdict of Scottish juries which was/is in practice an acquittal. It's apparently still used i
65.
by mdiesel 5y ago
We'd much rather live in a world where gender/sexual/health identities are as significant as being left/right handed. Can't jump to that stage without first going through what we are now, which is recognising those
66.
by mdiesel 5y ago
Setting up the Weimar Republic after WW1 didn't go so well, then the aftermath of WW2 there were decades of east+west Germany. I don't see that as a positive example of a foreign power setting up a government.
67.
by mdiesel 5y ago
All natural systems are spring+damper. That means they're effected in the same way by a difference in potential (spring) and also resistance to rate (damper). This isn't so much analogies, more that the physics of natural systems
68.
by mdiesel 5y ago
Agree, but also the issue with discussing UBI is a lack of data that is objectively applicable. Any study that tests UBI on a small scale is flawed from the get go, you can't have a placebo group, everyone knows they're in a study
69.
by mdiesel 5y ago
Look at AutoIt. It's a more traditional basic language, and iirc AHK was a fork of a very early version a few decades ago.
70.
by mdiesel 5y ago
Great way I had it explained to me was that if we imagine weather follows some kind of normal distribution called climate, then a shift of of the distribution makes those extreme weather events far more likely much quicker than it affects t
71.
by mdiesel 5y ago
And could inline, so that the preview image is loaded with the page itself.
72.
by mdiesel 5y ago
At the moment, the incentives are all aligned with us keeping the 3rd world as it is for as long as possible. IMO we need to recognise that the rhetoric of it being "our fault" doesn't sell well, right or wrong. We need to ch
73.
by mdiesel 5y ago
The TV show was great because it really got me feeling that everything was random, then everything was connected in some ridiculously complex way, exactly how it should for a holistic story. I'd recommend the TV show for anyone that ha
74.
by mdiesel 6y ago
+1 for OnePlus. I started years back on the 2, upgraded more recently to the 6T. Will take a lot of convincing for me to even think about anyone else. Same experience though, people have either heard of it and rave about it, or ask who make
75.
by mdiesel 6y ago
"Was it X that meant you couldn't do Y?" is the best way to phrase it if possible. It demonstrates an attempt, even if it's just a simple one, to understand it, and implies you have faith the other party haven't mis
76.
by mdiesel 6y ago
Text based programming is inherently 1d, so isn't well suited for the highly parallelised computing we have today. 2d programming would make much more sense. The issues with graphical languages arethings like being much harder diff&#x2
77.
by mdiesel 6y ago
No, but Wayland is not a bit of software you even think about until it goes wrong. That means the internet gets disproportionately filled with posts about Wayland not working, which presents the wrong image. When reading up on what desktop
78.
by mdiesel 6y ago
> If communism produces goods and services cheaper than the free market, we'd be awash in Soviet goods. Which we aren't, because they're undercut by Chinese goods...
79.
by mdiesel 6y ago
That works if people's only businesses are what is needed by the small community/tribe. We've reached a point where thanks to a millenia of technological advance, a fraction of the populace works in agriculture. Instead I wor
80.
by mdiesel 6y ago
I know what you're saying, but for some reason it makes me uneasy. I guess because anything trying to categorise people as either X or Y is fundamentally tribal. The HN readers are good at moderation overall, not perfect but definitely
81.
by mdiesel 6y ago
The key thing you've said though is "comments that provide value", a metric by which both up and down votes are important. In the perfect world, I'd come to HN and the top 2 voted comments would be the most succinct and
82.
by mdiesel 6y ago
"""I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have t
83.
by mdiesel 6y ago
I've only come across it as part of Pratchetts work, in the book Interesting Times, and had just assumed it was another of his witticisms.
84.
by mdiesel 6y ago
"Oh, it's just a singleton" - me after half an hour of reading yet another implementation calling it something else.
85.
by mdiesel 6y ago
Maybe, but just because it's impossible doesn't mean there shouldn't be an effort to try or that we shouldn't appreciate better journalism. Biased isn't a boolean, it's a scale. Something that is a little bit b
86.
by mdiesel 6y ago
"Designed for four professionals" with that many screens.
87.
by mdiesel 6y ago
Yes, but do the patent holders or companies making that better technology see their side of the task: they need to give the developing countries that technology. The problem is that would mean giving a country that can manufacture more chea
88.
by mdiesel 6y ago
Still in the UK, the moorlands you generally see were once woodlands - apparently that's why they have the distinctive terrain you now see. That's not in the era of written history mind and was for farming rather than iron. https
89.
by mdiesel 6y ago
Again, "stated objective" isn't the original objective but the approximation we've had to use instead. You say that it gets a "better" solution, so the against some indescribable original objective there's
90.
by mdiesel 6y ago
But if the definition of "optimisation" is achieving the best solution for the problem, then regularization isn't constraining optimisation, it's part of getting to the best solution and so becomes a part of the better o

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