pacala

35 ms·

331.
by pacala 7y ago
How does one determine how large the correction should be? Since the system is all opaque and political, what prevents one from setting a correction factor of 10x, making sure no child of --bourgeois-- middle-class parents will ever set fo
332.
by pacala 7y ago
One issue with discriminatory initiatives like this one is that they invite corruption. Given human nature, the invitation will be readily answered and then some. Triple so if the procedure is secret.
333.
by pacala 7y ago
True. I hoped to avoid a flame war, alas it's too late. The question is specifically about countries in Central America known to suffer periodic, though fairly rare, catastrophic droughts. The question is: does the rest of the world ha
334.
by pacala 7y ago
This is not the first time drought brings down Central American civilizations. Around 1000 years ago, the Mayan civilization collapsed under the weight of unsustainable populations combined with severe droughts [0]. [0] http://ww
335.
by pacala 7y ago
Population quadrupled since 1960 [0]. Going back 100 years, population exploded fourteen times over, from 1.2M in 1919 to 17.5M in 2019 [1]. Still growing strong, estimated to add another 9M by 2050. Pretty sure none of that population expl
336.
Was Shakespeare a woman? Of course he was(spectator.us)
10 points by pacala 7y ago|0 comments
337.
by pacala 7y ago
You're absolutely right. I expect[ed] articles on HN to make a credible attempt at being true, ideally independently verifiably so. "Did Emilia Bassano ghost-write Shakespeare works? Most likely not." would be a slightly more
338.
by pacala 7y ago
Synopsis of the article: - First half: Shakespeare didn't write the plays himself. - Second half: Life of Emilia Bassano, and "traces" thereof in some of Shakespeare's work, as narrated by "Emilia Bassano’s most ard
339.
by pacala 7y ago
What about pieces that are written with a not-so-subtle ideological axe to grind? Let's take fundamentalist Christianity, for example https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/humans/wheres-the-evi... . Would tha
340.
by pacala 7y ago
I've flagged the piece as wild speculation. Baffled what part of the article stimulated your intellectual curiosity. Remarkably, the article itself rests the case of relationship between Shakespeare's plays and the respective lady
341.
by pacala 7y ago
The language is easy. One can also learn English in 5 minutes: SUBJ-VERB-[JJ]*-OBJ, done! The library ecosystem and best practices on the other hand...
342.
by pacala 7y ago
People in South American countries have as much agency as people in the US. Among other things, they are capable of corruption and destruction on their own. The solution for preventing natural ecosystems loss in South America is to be prima
343.
by pacala 7y ago
> Until the locals have an alternative means of income. Which locals? As long as the global demand for cattle is growing, people will move into the Amazon and turn it into pasture. Between strong population growth [1 billion every 20 yea
344.
by pacala 7y ago
Maybe we're not that great at programming Turing machines afterall ;)
345.
by pacala 7y ago
How could we possible write functioning code? Massive trial and error, and still there are plenty of bugs.
346.
by pacala 7y ago
The author of the first version of Kubernetes. Author as in the person who wrote the code and bootstrapped the project. If memory serves well. Haven’t been at Google for a while, but in early 2010s would have been unrealistic to attempt to
347.
by pacala 7y ago
Most people have a fairness instinct. The fairness instinct has been observed even in monkeys [0]. Given that most people also live within a social fabric, it is not too hard to imagine that most people have an instinct for a fair society.
348.
by pacala 7y ago
Thanks for sharing the quote. Given the redacted variant, I understand that you take issue with the "abilities" part. Do you also take issue with the "preferences" part?
349.
by pacala 7y ago
How can you make moral judgements about "social justice" and its advocates/opponents, when you can't even define the term in your own words? I appreciate your instinct toward open and polite dialogue, I just don't s
350.
by pacala 7y ago
That is the definition of justice [0], and the definition of social [1]. What do you mean by "social justice"? Friendly righteousness? Edit. To further clarify, help distinguish "social justice" from "colorless gree
351.
by pacala 7y ago
What do you mean by "social justice"?
352.
by pacala 7y ago
Listen to yourself, openly racist and sexist. Be specific, what wrongs of the past? Which straight white male employee of Google today is benefiting from what tipped scales of the past? How about the straight asian males [like the CEO], are
353.
by pacala 7y ago
What do you mean by "social justice"?
354.
by pacala 7y ago
Not-so-child-nursery-rhyme from behind the Iron Curtain, in a world fraught with terrifying levels of government control. The translation loses the childish rhythm, for which I apologize: Those who are diligent and hardworking have ev
355.
by pacala 7y ago
> "The notion of object oriented programming is completely misunderstood. It's not about objects and classes, it's all about [function calls]."
356.
by pacala 7y ago
Exactly right. "Polymorphism" is nothing more than passing a function [or bunch of functions] as argument[s] of another function.
357.
by pacala 8y ago
Exactly right. OOP is a historical failure. We can't be using OOP to describe [immutable] value oriented programming [roughly functional programming] and FRP, unless we devoid OOP of most of its historical meaning. Historical OOP ortho
358.
by pacala 8y ago
The sumo comparison is quite apt, and also present in rugby, at least in scrum situations. OTOH, in rugby passing forward is prohibited. Not so in ultimate or football, where passing forward is a defining characteristic of the game.
359.
by pacala 8y ago
Quite popular among middle schoolers in my city is Ultimate Frisbee [0]. It flows similarly to football, at least for an European eye, but without rushing or tackling. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_(sport)
360.
by pacala 8y ago
Right. Except that none of my other coworkers tried the pat of the back trick. Except that said managers never did it in private. Just don't do it, instant respect losing move.

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