rpearl

22 ms·

241.
by rpearl 11y ago
Okay, I'm going to try to articulate the experience? Again, words are insufficient, but here are more of them.[1] So here goes: In the day-to-day life you experience a boundary between that which we consider 'self' and that w
242.
by rpearl 11y ago
The LIGO detectors were very carefully constructed to rule out this sort of noise; they are the result of a lot of human engineering ingenuity. It turns out that before making this investment in instrumentation specifically for the purpos
243.
by rpearl 11y ago
Deep Blue was only innovative in that it was specialized hardware for this type of search. The algorithms it used were well-established, and as there was no way to play it as a piece of hardware without great expense, there wasn't real
244.
by rpearl 11y ago
Why even care about it being your car? How about just a car? At your bidding when you need it and no other time.
245.
by rpearl 11y ago
That's Dropbox's consumer pricing. Their business pricing is $180/user/year ($15/user/mo) for unlimited. https://www.dropbox.com/business/pricing (nb: used to work there)
246.
by rpearl 11y ago
If you got $10M you'd keep working?
247.
by rpearl 11y ago
Please describe any benefit to the continued existence of polio in the wild (note that we have contained cultures for scientific study.) Then we can begin to weigh it against the benefits of eradicating it, like the millions of lives sa
248.
by rpearl 11y ago
In exchange for living far away from city centers you can have a large amount of private owned living space. Then you require a car, you are somewhat isolated from socialization, and your commute generally becomes longer, and as a result of
249.
by rpearl 11y ago
Really? "It's always sucked, accept that it has sucked and therefore will suck. Do not attempt to change the status-quo." Do you really think there isn't a better way to set things up? That nobody should try to fix thi
250.
by rpearl 11y ago
This is just begging the question--why does she need to be able to point us out in all future ages in the first place? What use does that have?
251.
by rpearl 11y ago
We are not using the biblical sense of marriage. Marriage has been a social institution--not a religious one--for many years.
252.
by rpearl 12y ago
Sure. Here's a pretty good summary: http://www.wired.com/2013/04/psychedlic/ Basically, Leary grew to prominence but his scientific methods were often faulty and he turned to mysticism. He became a cultu
253.
by rpearl 12y ago
Dr. Leary's extreme approaches set psychedelic research back many years and we are just now beginning to make forward progress again.
254.
by rpearl 12y ago
There is fantastic research being done by MAPS on using MDMA to assist in psychotherapy for PTSD. The trust and openness brought about by the effects of MDMA appear to be extremely effective at helping patients come to terms with their trau
255.
by rpearl 12y ago
Why is lowering drug use an actual goal here? Is it totally unheard of for drug use to be a responsible recreational activity? Is it fundamentally the case that drug use is irresponsible? Why?
256.
by rpearl 12y ago
We're getting pretty far off-topic here, but please note that "a sha256 hash of the parameters and a serverside secret" is insufficient for authentication: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash-based_message_
257.
by rpearl 12y ago
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33767/yavalath is a board game that is commercially available and was generated by a computer. It's got a decent rating, too. Higher than chess, in fact :)
258.
by rpearl 12y ago
What does "make sense" mean? I don't think we can have an argument about whether we can generate a description of the universe that agrees with reality until we agree on what "making sense" means in the first place.
259.
by rpearl 12y ago
It does relate... I'm not articulating what's in my head very well. I'll try again, I guess... The experience that you call "you" is the result of a direct, unbroken chain of physical chemical interactions all the w
260.
by rpearl 12y ago
It is not at all one of the fundamental tenets of our political system. You have to take social context into consideration when generating social laws. People in oppressed and minority groups need more help because they are starting fro
261.
by rpearl 12y ago
Please read the other part of my comment, wherein I claim that he does not have a right to suppress rights . The context is extremely important: totally uncritical tolerance is not useful to society, and erodes tolerance. We need to be a
262.
by rpearl 12y ago
What you might call "understanding the universe", seeing how it works, the mechanisms by which conscious experience happens... a religious person might call that "knowing god" and both of these are reasonable views of th
263.
by rpearl 12y ago
The two sides you paint are not at all equal. Political discourse gets thrown out the window when you are working towards the suppression of the rights of a group of people. If conservative politics is directly linked to bigotry I see no re
264.
by rpearl 12y ago
I don't know if this comment was meant to be snarky, or illustrative, or in any way not a direct statement of fact, but I will never take such a comment lightly. Are you okay? Please call a friend and talk, or 1-800-273-8255 (national
265.
by rpearl 12y ago
It is rare to be able to pinpoint a experience as a life-altering event in one's life. It is even more unique when one can trace the experience to the work of one individual. Dr. Shulgin's work directly and positively effected pro
266.
by rpearl 12y ago
I think all this illustrates is selective memory. You remember some cyclists swerving because that frightened you. You don't remember all the times the interaction went smoothly. The irresponsible cyclist who killed a woman is just tha
267.
by rpearl 12y ago
It's just not good notation at all, though. It strongly implies "call". And "object". This is misleading.
268.
by rpearl 12y ago
> binary_add<int, int>(a, b) no... there is simply not function call overhead for adding two integers in C.
269.
by rpearl 13y ago
They write terrible, terrible code. Can I donate to some smart people looking to replace OpenSSL with something reasonable?
270.
by rpearl 13y ago
No, People who believe that some groups deserve less rights than others, and take action on those beliefs should not lead companies. Certainly, they should not lead tech companies who have a focus on being open and accepting.

More ›