rwallace

72 ms·

661.
by rwallace 11y ago
We already have energy sources that are much cheaper than coal when you take all the costs into account. If you start demanding that renewable energy must be cheaper than coal when coal gets huge effective subsidies and renewable energy get
662.
by rwallace 11y ago
It's worth remembering that studies have shown the hire/no hire decision has in most cases been made no later than ten seconds after you walk into the room, and your experience confirms that. So: 1. Don't fret too much about
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by rwallace 11y ago
If you're going to have a policy of being yourself, that needs to go with an understanding that yourself is mutable, and a policy of changing yourself to be better adapted to your environment. In this case, it's important to reali
664.
by rwallace 11y ago
Ireland here. Peaked maybe two or three decades later than the US did, but yes, my countrymen seem determined to import all the systemic corruption and waste and follow the Americans on their downward spiral, so unless that changes, we are
665.
by rwallace 11y ago
An apple and a cheese sandwich? That's decently nutritious, and easier and cheaper than going to McDonald's.
666.
by rwallace 11y ago
Most humans find it very hard to resist social pressure. A whole society doing crazy things in lockstep - until the society is destroyed or otherwise comes to grief as a whole - is unfortunately a recurring theme in history. I've seen
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by rwallace 11y ago
What's to understand? If all your acquaintances started cutting themselves or smoking crystal meth, would you insist on emulating them in that too? As it is, your standard of living would be markedly improved if you went and lived on t
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by rwallace 11y ago
The irony is that it's actually appallingly bad for capitalist society. That is, it was good for capitalist society in the nineteenth century when what the economy needed was people who were literate enough to read an instruction manua
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by rwallace 11y ago
It's perfectly okay to say all communication on a particular project of public interest should be open. Fine, set up a public mailing list and tell people to use that instead of private email. It's a lot less okay to lead people t
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by rwallace 11y ago
Unless you live in North Korea, nearly any unjust law can in principle be avoided by 'simply' leaving the country. In practice, this is a sufficiently costly step that we still correctly say that unjust laws infringe on people&#x2
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by rwallace 11y ago
Last I checked the terms of H1B, workers under it were not independent by a very long shot. Not outright slaves, granted, but the term 'indentured servitude' could reasonably be used.
672.
by rwallace 11y ago
Calling it fraud suggests that; 20 years in prison is an excessive punishment just for stealing money. But H1B is actually a large fraction of the way to slavery, and slavery is a worse crime than murder. So in this case I'd be fine wi
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by rwallace 11y ago
Yes, that's the problem. Our society fortunately no longer tolerates overt discrimination by race, sex or religion, but unfortunately still tolerates discrimination by age, overt at the low end and thinly veiled at the high end. We nee
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by rwallace 11y ago
How much - in actual numbers - is the increased risk? How does it compare to the risks of alternative courses of action such as moving to a neighborhood with a higher crime rate, tolerating an increased commute (hours of life directly lost,
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by rwallace 11y ago
I like the concept, would definitely try out again when it's a bit further along. Main things from a quick look: - Today's monitors have plenty of horizontal space but a shortage of vertical space; the context window needs to be a
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by rwallace 11y ago
Because taking a small fraction of the total budget and throwing it at a bunch of wacky longshot research projects is how you find the occasional important thing you would otherwise have missed. I'm not saying I think they've real
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by rwallace 11y ago
In my experience, clang-format is much more usable in practice because it understands more of the syntax of C++ (rather than just relying on heuristics/pattern-matching) so it's much less prone to getting edge cases wrong.
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by rwallace 11y ago
The problem is that words like 'selfish' are personal; that's precisely their meaning. It's one thing to say 'don't take it so personal' in a technical discussion where it should be clear to all particip
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by rwallace 11y ago
It gives the current death rate for TB as 1.5 million per year. That could well now be higher than malaria, yes.
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by rwallace 11y ago
There are times when it is necessary to recognize that we are interacting with the environment, not in our capacity as logical problem solvers, but in our capacity as social apes. "This presentation is bullshit. You have no evidence, n
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by rwallace 11y ago
Okay, but then what you're saying is, at that point you are in a state of mind such that you are not going to be able to accurately evaluate the candidate. In that case, you should recuse yourself from conducting the interview that day
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by rwallace 11y ago
I couldn't bring myself to go as far as letting a dog lick a wound, but these days the Mayo Clinic is advising against using disinfectants like iodine or alcohol; just make sure it's clean and apply a sterile bandage. Rationale: d
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by rwallace 11y ago
I was asked a while ago by a non-geek, wouldn't you have to be crazy to believe in cryonics? My answer was, you would have to be crazy to believe there was a one hundred percent chance it was going to work, but you wouldn't have t
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by rwallace 11y ago
I didn't downvote you, but are you sure you meant to go as far as calling those things sacred topics? I've seen plenty of comments disagreeing with several of the propositions in your list.
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by rwallace 11y ago
- defense, which benefits you globally via Pax Americana, This is, to put it mildly, a controversial claim. - Most expatriated Americans probably already benefitted from free education which is included here. When I point out the insanity o
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by rwallace 11y ago
> Right now the LLVM IR isn't platform-agnostic, e.g. when it comes to calling conventions. But it does give you the same benefits in terms of CPU capabilities. You can't ship intermediate code that's agnostic about e.g. x
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by rwallace 11y ago
I didn't downvote you, but I'll play devil's advocate and make an argument over why access to Facebook is a right. In the normal course of events, a non-government company is free to decide who it does business with. But ther
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by rwallace 11y ago
> We can do both. Google stores, backs up, secures, and generally ensures your data is safe, and you can click a button to download it all if you think you can do any of that better. This is exactly the right solution, and credit to Goog
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by rwallace 11y ago
That's pretty grim, then. Are other US cities like that, or is it just San Francisco?
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by rwallace 11y ago
That sounds surprisingly bad. Are these considered good areas in San Francisco, or slightly iffy, or very dodgy?

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