rdbl27

5 ms·

1.
by rdbl27 7d ago
Newton was able to attend Cambridge at all only because his parents were prosperous yeoman farmers who owned substantial agricultural estates and held private incomes. Nearly all schools at the time were not subsidized by society and requir
2.
by rdbl27 7d ago
Newton and Leibniz both inherited substantial estates from their upper middle class parents. Neither was fabulously wealthy, but they were both able to bootstrap their academic careers with inherited money until they became famous enough to
3.
by rdbl27 7d ago
1. is debatable, but in any case that is not the argument that the GP post made -- the post specifically argued that it's worth developing knowledge with no immediate known application, because some application may be developed later.
4.
by rdbl27 7d ago
Leetcode does not test your ability to code in the sense of anything related to real world engineering applications. Leetcode merely tests your ability to memorize and regurgitate algorithms from a textbook -- a skill that LLMs can now do a
5.
by rdbl27 9d ago
The claim is falsifiable; the bulk of 18th century math is "forgotten" in the sense that few, if any, people still use or apply or even know about it. It's not "forgotten" in the technical sense that one _can_ still
6.
by rdbl27 9d ago
True, but this is also a stunning example of survivorship bias. Countless other mathematical curiosities were developed in the 1700s -- and forgotten. Calculus just happens to be the one that found practical applications later, so that&#x27
7.
by rdbl27 16d ago
Don't despair; new tool rollouts are always a hard sell -- especially when replacing a beloved classic. For me, the killer feature would be "ease of use." Sure, I _can_ make rsync do any number of rarely-used optimizations, i
8.
by rdbl27 20d ago
They chose a license that is _explicitly designed_ to allow people to profit from their work without paying. There are many other licensing terms in common use. They chose that one. That's fine, they can do what they like with their wo
9.
by rdbl27 20d ago
So.... Since they explicitly chose not to require any payment, there is no moral obligation to pay them. That's the point. Would it be nice? Sure. But "not donating" is also fine. "Donations" are, by definition, ent
10.
by rdbl27 20d ago
"It's the right thing to do" in reply to a moral query is the "begging the question fallacy". The question at hand is of the form: Is it right to do X (to donate, in this case)? Your reply amounts to: yes, because X
11.
by rdbl27 24d ago
You believe you know better than the authors themselves about how they ought to be treated? They chose -- explicitly, voluntarily, knowingly -- to give the thing away for free. That's their right for their own creation. Your preference
12.
by rdbl27 24d ago
Surely "the right thing to do" includes some element of the authors' explicitly stated preferences about how they wish to be treated. In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution from a
13.
by rdbl27 2mo ago
The AI product doesn't fall apart (at least, not a good AI product.) The proposition is that is functionally indistinguishable from a human product to the extent that _there is no way to tell_, absent a formal and seperate disclosure.
14.
by rdbl27 2mo ago
The fact that these same people can't tell whether it was authored by a human or an AI without a seperate disclosure is strong evidence that human authorship as such is not what they value at all.
15.
by rdbl27 2mo ago
The makeup of the numbers is shifting radically. 20 years ago, ~all Facebook users were organic real life social networks chatting with each other online. It's not gone yet, but for many years, that "organic social network" u
16.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
Has it occurred to you that _all_ model providers are actively trying to shape their models' replies to fit their preferred political narratives?
17.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
The case of Sweden entirely falsifies the theory that "it would've been much worse without government action." No government action whatsoever was taken in Sweden. None. Death rates were no better or worse than adjacent count
18.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
ICE agents arrest _people who committed crimes_ at green card interviews (including "entering the country illegally," which is a crime.) As I said, the United States is very welcoming to foreigners who are willing to follow the la
19.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
Yes. The United States. Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the language and customs. M
20.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
He's coldly rational: The investors gave him $5 million. Large commitment, large risk. Each customer gives him 15k per unit. Even a rare large customer who buys 100 ovens gives him 150k. Small commitment, small risk. If he breaks his p
21.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
Yes. 99% of things just worked, zero modifications. The few cases where something was not directly translatable was <10 minutes with a coding agent to make some minor config changes, and then it just worked.
22.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
I generally agree, but it's a bit overstated to say "nobody talks about Oracle now" -- they made a profit of about $17 billion dollars in 2025.
23.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
More specifically, 0 dB is the loudest sound the audio system is rated to produce without distortion. It's common to be able to actually drive systems harder than their specified engineering limits, which is why meters have a short pos
24.
by rdbl27 3mo ago
Over 99% of students who attempt your "mostly quiet" strategy are managed entirely out of academia long before tenure. You won the lottery, which is great for you, but it's not a strategy to promote to others as life advice.
25.
by rdbl27 4mo ago
The problem is not a presumption that government can't ever be good. The problem is that the team you personally think is "good" won't be in charge forever. Everyone loves enabling broad government authority when people
26.
by rdbl27 4mo ago
You are glossing over the fact that Japan severely punishes crime, and acquittals are almost unheard of.
27.
by rdbl27 4mo ago
Sure, but those are cherrypicked cases where a technology became obsolete. There are many counterexamples of decades-old technologies that are still actively chosen for greenfield work today, in 2026. SQL was first released in 1973. More ne
28.
by rdbl27 4mo ago
Isn't your whole post "just a complaint" too?
29.
by rdbl27 4mo ago
Yes, in the same sense that it is still technically possible to ride a horse to work instead of using a car. You can code in assembly instead of using a compiler, too.
30.
by rdbl27 5mo ago
You used a lot of fancy words to say "fashions in interior design change over time," making much of little in the process.

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