mikeash

66 ms·

691.
by mikeash 7y ago
We can’t hide the fact that climate has changed naturally in the past. We just have to point out the important differences, like speed (as you say) and the fact that advanced civilization with seven billion humans wasn’t around for previous
692.
by mikeash 7y ago
Most compilers are nondeterministic in small ways. For example, it's common to use hash tables that are keyed by pointer address and then iterate over the entries in storage order, so the order in which certain things are emitted will
693.
by mikeash 7y ago
I think it's useful because it gets you thinking about which category various things fall into, and how they're connected. For example, business growth is usually wealth creation. We shouldn't think badly of successful busine
694.
by mikeash 7y ago
It occurs to me that there’s a simpler way to put it: wealth creation is not a zero sum game, but wealth allocation is.
695.
by mikeash 7y ago
It’s a common fallacy to believe that wealth is zero sum. It’s also a common fallacy to believe that, since it’s not zero sum, gains by one group are uncorrelated to losses by another. If the rich got richer, does that mean they took from t
696.
by mikeash 7y ago
Right, this is the weird thing about it. A democracy that has been captured by a few powerful groups is still 90% as good as one that hasn’t, as long as the people still believe that peaceful change is possible.
697.
by mikeash 7y ago
It does sound like madness, but any alternative effectively tells the foolish that if they don’t like how things are going then their only choice is to get out the torches and pitchforks.
698.
by mikeash 7y ago
The fundamental feature of democracy is that it gives people a way to address their grievances that doesn’t require violence. This, in turn, provides for peaceful transitions of power and overall political stability. For democracy to accomp
699.
by mikeash 7y ago
And then you update your compiler and something completely different happens.
700.
by mikeash 7y ago
There’s no way it’ll charge while driving. It might discharge more slowly while driving and charge while parked.
701.
by mikeash 7y ago
I totally agree, if the users treat it accordingly. The trouble is when the police assume there’s a 99.9% chance that each flagged person is guilty because the system has a 0.1% false positive rate.
702.
by mikeash 7y ago
Like it or not, paywalls are allowed here, and comments complaining about them are not.
703.
by mikeash 7y ago
I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between economic value and other sorts of value. My objection boils down to pay being an approximation of value and rarity . Picking fruit is extremely valuable but the pay is shit because worke
704.
by mikeash 7y ago
10% of employees deliver 50% of the scented flowers, if you use pay as a rough proxy for scented flowers. Big if, there.
705.
by mikeash 7y ago
I don’t think your second paragraph is quite right. Rational actors wouldn’t deliberately start such a war. But each act involved in starting it might be rational, while producing a profoundly irrational result. I think WWI illustrates th
706.
by mikeash 7y ago
Nah, first they came for the pornography. Bans on adult content are almost universal on mainstream services. Somehow this is never considered censorship by the tech community. It’s only when they start to ban other content that anyone cares
707.
by mikeash 7y ago
Every ~400 years or so.
708.
by mikeash 7y ago
How about you include an opt in link? If the service is so valuable then this should be fine.
709.
by mikeash 7y ago
Whose goal? The goal of the people who own these companies is to make money with it, or carry out whatever other purpose it has. The goal of the government in providing a legal framework which allows these companies to exist as legal entiti
710.
by mikeash 7y ago
YouTube has never been anything like a free for all. Why is this suddenly a problem?
711.
by mikeash 7y ago
Further complicating things, lots of people will say they want 1 or 2, but really want one of the others, because they don’t really understand what randomness looks like. Lots of music players started out with true randomness and then diale
712.
by mikeash 7y ago
Vasily Arkhipov was a single tired guy in a submarine. The Soviet submarine B-59 was being depth charged and its captain wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo at the US Navy fleet that was pursuing it. Two other officers had to agree to launch
713.
by mikeash 7y ago
Lots of catastrophes came true. Your example of the Cuban Missile Crisis is particularly odd: there was nothing at all overblown about the worry, and there’s a pretty good case to be made that the fate of the world came down to a single tir
714.
by mikeash 7y ago
The link is to the history of communism, not the theory. The history of communism in the 20th century is inextricably tied to totalitarianism. Whether this is because of the nature of communism or just because this particular communist move
715.
by mikeash 7y ago
You could brute force that fairly easily if you know approximately when the message was sent. Still a lot better than being able to see it right in your packet sniffer, of course.
716.
by mikeash 7y ago
How do you know they didn’t bring a gun? There’s no reason to feel safe around someone who recently made a credible murder threat.
717.
by mikeash 7y ago
Just one example: when I’m working on a random unknown bolt, I have to try two sets of sockets on it because I don’t know if it’s metric or imperial. Worse, there are some sizes which are close enough to grip and seem like a fit, but which
718.
by mikeash 7y ago
Does Erik Naggum go lick the armrests in the local clinic if he hasn’t had a cold in a while?
719.
by mikeash 7y ago
That means you never build up a habit, but it still comes up fairly regularly. If you forget to charge it before it dies completely, then you either find another mouse or take a forced break. Not ideal.
720.
by mikeash 7y ago
I’m sure there’s some, but tiny. There’s risk from the symptoms too, so it’s not clear which is worse.

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