rhelz

21 ms·

331.
by rhelz 2y ago
It is little wonder that, when COVID came, nobody believed anything the scientists were saying.
332.
by rhelz 2y ago
This reminds me of the study they did when they had an old man cross the paths of some test subjects, and then observed that the mere presence of the old man caused the test subjects to perform worse on their tests. Of course, later it was
333.
by rhelz 2y ago
In a capitalist economy, what do we do when we want more of something? Buehler? Buehler? This is no big mystery. People simply are not being paid enough to give their own children the kind of life they had growing up. The world we are l
334.
by rhelz 2y ago
wow....that's such a great example that I never would have thought of it myself. But...that's kind of the whole point being made here, right? :-)
335.
by rhelz 2y ago
The author says that he can now write an article in 1/3rd of the time he used to. (as soon as he stops endlessly rephrasing the output of ChatGPT, that is.) This is an EPOCHAL increase in productivity. We should be as excited for the
336.
by rhelz 2y ago
There is no optimal textbook. This is a constraint satisfaction problem, not an optimization problem. ANY textbook you sit down and read, and solve its problem sets is infinitely better than ANY textbook you don't. Stop bike shedd
337.
by rhelz 2y ago
Fun fact: The romans had abacuses (abaci?), which represent a positional number system--including a representation for zero. A Roman abacus would have beads arranged for both decimal (base 10) and dozenal (base 12) calculations--because so
338.
by rhelz 2y ago
I was studying how those mechanical calculators (like the one in "Hidden Figures") worked, and it struck me that Hero of Alexandria, or whoever made the Antikythra mechanism, could have easily made one. I thought long and hard ab
339.
by rhelz 2y ago
These are good questions; I'll try to give you good answers. // If it’s funded by a flat tax, then yes, but then what’s the point? Seems like nothing more than a shell game. // yes. // If it’s funded by a
340.
by rhelz 2y ago
If it is funded by taxation, it need not be inflationary. If you think about it, the Fed only really has one "knob" they can turn to control inflation: they can either raise or lower the interest rates. However, raising taxes is
341.
by rhelz 2y ago
Yeah, I hear ya, but wouldn’t he rather want to keep being able to vote on what the tax rates should be? We don’t have to wonder whether Trump would protect our right to choose our president—he has already tried to unconstitutionally send f
342.
by rhelz 2y ago
You'll never know when you've been persuaded by the best propaganda. That's why its the best propaganda. sigh and I don't like it either. I miss the days, not long ago, when if something was making reasonably grammat
343.
by rhelz 2y ago
Hmm...you want us to spend less on defense, and weaken our ability to protect from spies....You sound a lot like a chatbot whose purpose is to spread propaganda which is not in our best interest. I hate that there is not way for me too tell
344.
by rhelz 2y ago
His methodology has a lot of planning. I'm in general, terrible at planning how long a program will take to be written. But there is one class of programs I am pretty good at: very short, very simple, programs. Good news is that
345.
by rhelz 2y ago
// on the backs of the Reagan 80s boom // chuckle if you were even alive back in 1990, you would remember that the economy was pretty bad--or at least, we thought it was pretty bad; our scale of just how bad "pr
346.
by rhelz 2y ago
No private sector projects ever take longer than expected, or cost more than expected, right? (Especially my projects chuckle ) You hear about musk getting 4/50 billion, you say, oh well, its what the shareholders voted for... You
347.
by rhelz 2y ago
> are telling me that the company tried to save money by not giving the exec what he deserved Not at all, and sorry if I gave that impression. I only wrote what I know and saw. I don't know anything more than that. > You just p
348.
by rhelz 2y ago
// Most companies don’t buy jets and yachts // True, but it is also hyperbole to say the government is terminally wasteful. Most departments of the government are very efficient. Social Security, for example, has an ad
349.
by rhelz 2y ago
That doesn't mean it is more efficient. The administrative costs of Social Security, for example, are around 1/2%. That compares very favorably with most of the funds in my 401k.
350.
by rhelz 2y ago
chuckle My guess is you haven't worked much in the private sector :-) You wouldn't even believe the private jets, yachts, huge bonuses, and other things they spend on which have nothing to do with making money. Why, Elon Musk
351.
by rhelz 2y ago
During the Clinton administration, they (1) raised taxes, and (2) eliminated the budget deficit. In fact, we had budget surpluses. Personally, I was shocked. I thought for sure the increase in taxes would push an already wobbly economy in
352.
by rhelz 2y ago
// The top 10% of people pay 75% // 75% of what? Income tax? Very misleading--there is more than one way to make money, and those in the top 10% are probably not making most of their money via income. Warren Buffet fa
353.
by rhelz 2y ago
sigh it wasn't motivated by a wacky sense of humor, or by any sadistic tendencies. And we didn't ask dick C++ questions either. After somebody has told you they are only a 3 or a 4 out of 10 in C++, you don't have to ding
354.
by rhelz 2y ago
We did look very unfavorably at candidates who had an unrealistically high opinion of themselves. But we didn't ask dick C++ questions. Like list all 200 ways you can initialize a variable in C++. And, once somebody has told you they
355.
by rhelz 2y ago
How would you rate yourself on a scale, from 1 to 10, on C++ knowledge? 1 being you know C, 10 being you are Bjarne Stroustrup or Bruce Eckle? Personally, I was a 4 back in 1996, and have monotonically fallen since then.
356.
by rhelz 2y ago
OP here. This is probably the most down-voted and dumped-on post I've made on HN. Answer: We hired interns the same way. Is that really so bad though? How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on C++: 1 being you know C, a
357.
by rhelz 2y ago
chuckle back when I worked at Intel, a question we'd ask candidates for a C++ programming position was, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your understanding of C++?" Anybody who gave an answer of 5 or above was an
358.
by rhelz 2y ago
In a capitalist economic system, for a product to have a price, there just has to be scarcity. And if no inherent scarcity exists, it must be created. And for there to be profit, there has to be a monopoly. Hence the copywrite/pate
359.
by rhelz 2y ago
sigh yet another victim of pop-sci.....I've edited the OP with an explanation.
360.
by rhelz 2y ago
This is a very profound point. We have to actually live with each other, and even for small groups, frictions arise. As the groups get larger and larger, friction intensifies. There has to be some way to blow off steam. Kind of like ho

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