ocschwar

68 ms·

751.
by ocschwar 10y ago
I'm a huge fan of the hacker angle, but I really deplore their use of the Mad Genius trope. In real life, when people are as tormented by schizophrenia and PTSD as Mr. Robot is, their talents are of no use and of no threat to anyone. W
752.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Renewables require that the production and consumption of energy be governed by a packet routing paradigm very similar to TCP/IP. Google is already in that business. Monetizing it in the energy sector will be very, very good for shareh
753.
by ocschwar 10y ago
> So, which speech did you attend? I can only take so much of that before I click away.
754.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Speaking of Neal Postman: I first got on the Internet in 1993. In the last 23 years, I've seen the Internet evolve from primarily a text based interface, which encouraged long form writing, and line-by-line-dissection of long form writ
755.
by ocschwar 10y ago
They listened to many short speeches that weren't speeches at all. Just word salad and "trump that bitch" and "lock her up." Lincoln and Douglass were another thing entirely.
756.
by ocschwar 10y ago
My feeling is that since Facebook has a monopoly on being Facebook, and Twitter has a monopoly on being Twitter, and since these companies have an interest in not being gamed by the KGB, Macedonian teenagers or anything else, they should ke
757.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Seriously? What boon to public culture? We just entered a "post-truth" era, where the public at large cares nothing about truth, or anything requiring an attention span. If intellectuals are finding ways to feed themselves and ap
758.
by ocschwar 10y ago
For the same reason why investors participate in bubbles they know are bubbles: because they think they can get out in time. If you can sell the last apartment in a condo tower, who cares that a day later the rising tides rust out the eleva
759.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Let's be kind to Verne. He did not know the depth of the Marianas trench.
760.
by ocschwar 10y ago
The CivE questions are not much of a departure from Mech-E at all. That still leaves chemical engineers and material engineers, and that is partly because Civ-E is older, and the need for licensing in Civ-E was established first, by the Que
761.
by ocschwar 10y ago
No, but there is value in seeing just what other branches of engineer have to learn to safeguard human life.
762.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Just not the case. Public municipal toilets in Europe are staffed, just one person constantly keeping the place clean, and ready to call the police if anything like that goes on. And it works. Certainly works better than having elevator sha
763.
by ocschwar 10y ago
I've passed the Fundamentals of Engineering exam for EE. There was a civil engineering portion, and I passed it despite never having done any schoolwork in civ-e. It's not hard.
764.
by ocschwar 10y ago
This is why we have the concept of a "professional engineer." This is why we require building designs and other engineering documents to be signed by a PE. It's not just that you know enough of your field for your signature t
765.
by ocschwar 10y ago
I once hit black ice at 10 MPH, just as an old man was crossing. Luckily for me, the black ice ended 12 feet before I'd have hit him. At that speed, I'd rather have hit a tree. Point is, when the roads are narrow, and you know tha
766.
by ocschwar 10y ago
I am not kidding about this: there are places in the Midwest where people have been required to remove trees from their front yards in order to make things safer for drivers who might drift off roads.
767.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Yes. It will. And it does. Massachusetts roads are infamously lined with trees, rocks, and all sorts of other barriers that make it a very bad idea to drive carelessly. Drive like an idiot and you'll send a body shop owner's kid t
768.
by ocschwar 10y ago
because it is part of the United States of America, and inhabited by their fellow Americans. If conservatives are this blithe about inflicting hardship against their fellow Americans, then they are traitors. (I'm a conservative, BTW. F
769.
by ocschwar 10y ago
I got a talk about it when I got my green card. Kind of late to be doing it when you're applying to naturalize
770.
by ocschwar 10y ago
When I lived in Illinois, it was explicitly legal for me as a resident to vote for the school council. I still didn't because it was also illegal according to my native country, to vote in ANY American election. So if an anecdote of th
771.
by ocschwar 10y ago
I love how Elsevier makes the clickbait freely available but requires a subscription for the debunking. Facebook is not the only problem we're up against.
772.
by ocschwar 10y ago
As a naturalized citizen, I am highly skeptical. I've been a citizen for years, but if any voting record emerges that shows me voting prior to my naturalization date, the naturalization would be annulled and I would be deported for it.
773.
by ocschwar 10y ago
We could indeed prevent the next ice age. We would be idiots to do it, but we could. (An ice age would push a temperate climate onto the fucking Sahara. That's a lot of new farmland...)
774.
by ocschwar 10y ago
"We are still only 12k years out an ice age and learning as we go" Some of us are learning more than others. Some of us have noticed that the Milankovich cycles, in particular the precession of the earth's perihelion versus t
775.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Here in New England we already have an interstate compact on climate action, so non-federal interstate cooperation is a pretty normal thing. True meanwhile the red states will go apeshit, but we have to start somewhere. And given that the P
776.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Crack down on employers? Yeah, like that's going to happen.
777.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Well, you're right they are places of disenfranchisement. We had one party this week work to make sure polling places in the city would have the longest waiting times they could get away with.
778.
by ocschwar 10y ago
"Cancel UN climate payments, use money instead on America water and environmental issues. Sounds good to me. Let China and India clean up their own mess, while we clean up our messes. -" The issue with climate change is that the p
779.
by ocschwar 10y ago
I live by one of those cities, and there are indeed a lot of visa overstayers living there. The prospect of those people being too scared to call 911 if they witness a crime is something I am decidedly NOT looking forward to.
780.
by ocschwar 10y ago
Well, that's one way to get all of Mexico hooked on Bitcoin.

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