pixodaros

10 ms·

91.
by pixodaros 3y ago
One of the names for this is 'control fraud' and its very common. To pick an exotic example, people in the United States create software companies to impress rich fools, borrow their money on promises that it will get really big,
92.
by pixodaros 3y ago
Turning to a Hacker News friendly theme, Mr. Watt and Herr Doktor Haber und Bosch have a lot to do with why livestock today are so big and produce so much milk and wool or so many eggs. Internal combustion engines and artificial nitrates l
93.
by pixodaros 3y ago
To be fair, he does notice that Roman historians are saying things about antiquity which are different than what this specialist in 18th/19th century said in 1986 (footnote 11). There is a famous passage by one of the ancient Greek po
94.
by pixodaros 3y ago
Yes, I think Gwern might want to look into practical animals such as sheep not luxury animals such as racehorses. Just getting those big, strong, docile racehorses required selective breeding! Edit: And amusingly he does talk briefly about
95.
by pixodaros 3y ago
Aside from the massive and overwhelming evidence that people have been selectively breeding plants since the Stone Age, Gwern needs to read Carolyn Willekes on ancient horses. One of her observations is that the ancients seemed to have val
96.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Its standard practice with insurgents and paramilitaries like FARC and the CIA drone squads in the oughties. One strike to hurt people and light fires, another a few minutes later to kill the first responders.
97.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Which customers are getting screwed? Posters or viewers on 'free' hosting sites are the products not the customers. Online ad buyers everywhere get cheated, but that is another story. Many of these giant sites are really in the
98.
by pixodaros 4y ago
None of those things was Facebook or Twitter's business, because none was how they make money. Facebook and Twitter are for-proffit businesses, and for almost all of their history the money has come from selling advertising and survei
99.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Its an empirical rule of thumb that to build an audience online, post at least once a week (more often for low-effort posts for smartphones). If you can think of any well-known online writers who do not post a lot, I think you will find th
100.
by pixodaros 4y ago
I got to know and trust Ranum and Axe on the specific areas of expertise of IT projects and contemporary military affairs for years (have not heard much from them since then). You, on the other hand, are a stranger on the Internet. I live
101.
by pixodaros 4y ago
After a year of losing the war and firing all kind of random munitions, if Russia had aircraft which it thought could survive against Ukrainian air defenses, I think it would use them. They certainly are not scared of losing people or equi
102.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Confident strangers on the Internet are not worth much. Good articles, with references, which go into competing points of view and explain the problems with them, are worth a lot. Like I said, that Sprey person seems like a blowhard who go
103.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Canada is not a bad example, because previous governments almost got railroaded into the F-35, drew it back and held an open competition, and then decided on the F-35 after all. It seems like some of the skeptics now trust the F-35 and I w
104.
by pixodaros 4y ago
The thing about dogfighting and guns / mawr dakka seems to be an American thing, I did not hear it, but David 'Warisboring' Axe seemed like a serious reporter, and Marcus Ranum was a serious IT guy
105.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Again, people trying to sell the F-35 in the oughties were saying that, but the experts I went to at the time were skeptical (and especially skeptical whether those extra capabilities matter for those countries which don't have a war a
106.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Ten years ago, everyone interested in military aircraft who was not trying to sell the F-35 told me that it was terrible (too expensive, trying to do too many incompatible things, dependent on software systems which did not work and possibl
107.
by pixodaros 4y ago
A lot of citations to Razib Khan and Scott Alexander in his other posts! Effective Altruism was founded to evade the two dynamics he describes (donors who do what their friends will admire them for not what helps poor strangers, and chariti
108.
by pixodaros 4y ago
"Enough money" is usually defined by venture capitalists who want ALL THE MONEY and not by normal investors who want a modest predictable return. Patreon, for example, could have been a modestly profitable business which owned it
109.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Its almost like the guy who spent $44 billion to buy an ad-funded social media company did not understand that advertisers and data buyers are the customers and users are the product. Its not rocket science!
110.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Many prominent birdsite people are US journalists, pundits, and celebrities. They thought that although social media are the Leopards Eating my Face Party, their faces would stay untouched, and it would just be the proles who were banned o
111.
by pixodaros 4y ago
OTOH, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to enforce the terms of service as a front man for oligarchs became candidate for candidate for president became candidate for president became president became ex-president encouraging vio
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Writing for the Curious(bookandsword.com)
1 points by pixodaros 4y ago|1 comments
113.
by pixodaros 4y ago
The 'just the facts' or 'big idea' styles of most pop books are fueling suspicion of experts. How can scientists and scholars better communicate what we do and how we know?
114.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Its also that most of the best sites for hydropower have already been heavily developed. Countries like Egypt, Canada, and Norway have massive amounts of hydro because it was obviously a good deal since the late 19th century. In western C
115.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Well, yes: there was a regime change and the Soviet empire partially broke up, so over 30 years, the new Russian regime created friendly relations with many of its western neighbours. Pity an idiot in the Kremlin decided to burn all that w
116.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Fair enough! The history between the KMT and the CCP in the 1940s and 1950s was really ugly and complicated, but it has lead to this situation where Beijing may try to conquer Taipei and hundreds of millions of people may suffer.
117.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Pretty sure that the CCP policy that there is one China including Taiwan goes back to the 1950s. Its ugly and complicated history but Taiwanese people today can look at what is happening to the Uighurs and see very good reasons not to be c
118.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Assuming "why does the Chinese government hate a free Taiwan?" is a real question, because Taiwan is where the survivors of the Chinese Nationalist government went after they lost the civil war with the Communists (and Communists
119.
by pixodaros 4y ago
International politics are not about good guys and bad guys. The US government hates the Iranian and Cuban governments, not because they are worse than US allies like Saudi Arabia, but because they once humiliated the USA. Until 24 Februa
120.
by pixodaros 4y ago
Here is a timeline of the US pundit factoid that China plans to invade Taiwan by 2027 https://nitter.it/MikeBlack114/status/1571401031539367939#m The Chinese government hates free Taiwan and may invade but its a

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