rectang

48 ms·

901.
by rectang 4y ago
> gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems... Gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems are inevitable, inherent features of power utilities. If your technology is disastrous without perfect hand
902.
by rectang 4y ago
The fundamentals of that risk profile haven't changed — you still have high concentration of radioactive materials in a single geographic location. The risk profile for nuclear is unlike that of other technologies. They told us it was
903.
by rectang 4y ago
The fundamental problem is the concentration of radioactive materials at a single facility. (Hydroelectric power has a similar problem with the water behind dams.) Whether it's human error, terrorist attack, or natural disaster, nuclea
904.
by rectang 4y ago
Are there any Y Combinator companies who are invested in the advance of nuclear power?
905.
by rectang 4y ago
> If 99.999% fail do lack of personal empowerment, that is still a failure of the system, not the individual. A telling miscommunication appears to have occurred. In my mind, I granted the normal distribution of personal empowerment to
906.
by rectang 4y ago
Hmm, curious that you bring up "economic inequality" when I haven't mentioned it, let alone championed the quixotic goal of "eliminating" it. It makes sense to me that someone taking a roughly libertarian position o
907.
by rectang 4y ago
> A deficit of personal empowerment IS a structural and environmental factor. Not the only one, but it is one of the most important if not the most important in determining outcomes. This elevation of personal empowerment over all othe
908.
by rectang 4y ago
> I'm assuming you also agree that the status quo is not working well. I do, insofar as I believe the moralistic emphasis of the status quo is counterproductive. > Do you think that this education and empowerment is unnecessar
909.
by rectang 4y ago
OT but since it's giraffe_lady whose comments I've often appreciated... In most cases, I just flag comments that violate the guidelines and move on, regardless of whether I agree with their substance. In this case, I agreed with t
910.
by rectang 4y ago
> Personal behavior is the foundation that everything else is built on. There really is no alternative. This reminds me of designers who craft poorly designed interfaces which statistically guarantee that some portion of their users wi
911.
by rectang 4y ago
I generally agree with your diagnosis but this comment violates multiple aspects of the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don&#x2
912.
by rectang 4y ago
If you're going to make "a long-term attack on the causes, not the symptoms", focusing exclusively on personal morality and ignoring all structural aspects of homelessness (e.g. housing costs) is pretty limiting. What it will
913.
by rectang 4y ago
My two cents: Drove for Lyft. Got T-boned by a red-light runner while on my way to pick up a passenger. Lyft wouldn't cover my repair bill. Companies have been fighting since time immemorial to push risk and costs onto their workers
914.
by rectang 4y ago
"Can programming be liberated from the von Neumann style?" — John Backus, 1978 44 years later, it hasn't happened. I'm skeptical that it will happen in the next 28.
915.
by rectang 4y ago
But now it seems like there's more criminal profit potential in extortion, as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. A growth industry!
916.
by rectang 4y ago
Where I live (San Diego), they're big, heavy, mini-motorcycles zooming past others at top speed in narrow bike lanes. Is the hate for that so hard to understand?
917.
by rectang 4y ago
I agree that kerning is also a problem, and I also agree that it it can't practically be fixed. However, even if it's theoretically possible to change the font size, would Github ever do so? My impression is that as an organizati
918.
by rectang 4y ago
Did Github ever solicit feedback from the community for this feature? Was there ever a beta before they rolled it out? Because some of these critiques really should have been dealt with beforehand and I'm concerned that we're now
919.
by rectang 4y ago
My beef is with letting aesthetics trump accessibility. If a site provides a widget where contrast can be beefed up, probably part of the dark-mode / light-mode widget, that seems OK.
920.
by rectang 4y ago
> The thing about pure black isn't that it's unnatural, but that when paired with white its contrast can actually be uncomfortable and less accessible than a slightly toned down color combination (especially on full brightness
921.
by rectang 4y ago
I'm sympathetic to the idea that some people need reduced contrast to read comfortably. They are in the same boat as people who need maximum contrast because of other visual impairments, most commonly focal issues. Why wouldn't p
922.
by rectang 4y ago
There's actually a book that studies this by measuring readability of print articles by seeing how far readers got: Type and Layout by Colin Wheildon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1875750223/ The research uphe
923.
by rectang 4y ago
The thing about a lot of these classic papers is that they are often not very easy to digest compared with modern retellings of their subject matter. They typically represent the genesis of an idea that became influential and has since bee
924.
by rectang 4y ago
To me, "post-truth" is more an acknowledgement of a state of affairs where multiple parties stake irreconcilable and immutable claims on what is true. The truth may be obvious to you, but what if there is someone who asserts an in
925.
by rectang 4y ago
What I've come to appreciate is that freedom of association is a prerequisite of freedom of speech. You can't meaningfully exercise freedom of speech when shouted down by a mob or drowned out by a megaphone. The power to form ass
926.
by rectang 4y ago
There may have been a shared delusion at one time that we had something in common. We have cast aside that delusion now.
927.
by rectang 4y ago
In a post-truth world, actual reality is out there, but parties can't come to an agreement about what that reality is. Reality exists, but truth does not. > And building a society that is based on something contrary to reality is.
928.
by rectang 4y ago
In a post-truth world, there's no shared reality, and we can't talk to each other. We can only shout our own truth louder.
929.
by rectang 4y ago
I dislike this take. Twain produced great works near the end of his life, including The Mysterious Stranger and numerous essays. The characterization of the "Aquarium Club" as an "embarrassing obsession with prepubescent
930.
by rectang 4y ago
That seems ungenerous. There's no evidence of impropriety. Twain outlived his wife and two of his three daughters, and characterized the "aquarium club" as "surrogate granddaughters". Twain's only actual grand

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