rwallace

91 ms·

871.
by rwallace 12y ago
> In most cases, you're further advanced in your career when older, giving you more income, thereby more purchasing power. In practice, when people get 'further advanced' in a career over the years, their spending typicall
872.
by rwallace 12y ago
I'm saying there is nothing that would in fact have been done better by premature worry about global warming. If your argument is that any sequence of actions will be less than optimal - compared to, say, the actions that could have
873.
by rwallace 12y ago
If people had started to worry about the long-term effects of carbon output before it was already widespread, the Industrial Revolution would have been strangled at birth (the road from wood fires to solar panels leads through coal-burning
874.
by rwallace 12y ago
If you're providing a cubicle with bed and available showers, laundry service and suchlike, the added cost of providing electricity and Internet is small whereas the added value is large, so it strikes me as efficient.
875.
by rwallace 12y ago
The author makes some valid points, but instead of banning stock buybacks for all companies, I think there would be a stronger case for banning stock buybacks for companies that have been beneficiaries of bailouts with public money.
876.
by rwallace 12y ago
No, the best case for the user is what would have happened anyway. The worst case is the people who provided that free service, and maybe other people who see the thanks they got, end up thinking "well, damned if we're going to
877.
by rwallace 12y ago
As someone who used Google Code a while back (and did indeed end up moving to Github): it's a pity it had to end, but thank you for hosting it while it lasted. In its day, it was a service of unequaled quality.
878.
by rwallace 12y ago
I think, when people give you something of value for free, it's not okay to respond with "But you should have given me more!" If that's not obvious to you, think of it in game theory terms: you're basically respondi
879.
by rwallace 12y ago
It doesn't read that way to me. To be clear, as far as I'm concerned Aaron Swartz's death was judicial murder, but we have to be able to discuss strategy coldly and impartially without being accused of victim blaming, because
880.
by rwallace 12y ago
Rich people have always wanted things they can spend money on to show off their wealth. Such things can be divided into several kinds of categories, but in my opinion, the important category division is: 1. Expensive things that make the wo
881.
by rwallace 12y ago
In principle, nothing outside pure mathematics is certain. In practice, a USB stick you ordered from Amazon and just took out of its packaging is far less likely to carry a virus than one you just found lying around.
882.
by rwallace 12y ago
Fair enough. On the other hand, the percentage price increase it's worth paying for that, is perhaps on the order of the probability that your phone would otherwise die from that cause rather than some other. I suspect actually making
883.
by rwallace 12y ago
Now I'm curious: what exactly is your use case for a phone at one hundred foot depth?
884.
by rwallace 12y ago
Java has a generational garbage collector, so short-lived allocations pretty much don't cost anything, and by and large it's exactly the short-lived allocations that are the ones you could have optimized away in e.g. hand-tuned C+
885.
by rwallace 12y ago
Or to be more exact: if we could build such things at all, which we can't yet, they would run at a very small fraction of real-time.
886.
by rwallace 12y ago
Yes, but unfortunately, by that definition, most people think they have good social radar but only a tiny minority actually do. Jessica maybe in that tiny minority, but I'm not and you probably aren't either.
887.
by rwallace 12y ago
This is an excellent and inspiring post, but I'm worried people might try to use it as a model. Neurotypical people think they can tell all sorts of things about someone's character from a short face-to-face meeting, but it turns
888.
by rwallace 12y ago
The way I figure it, when value is being knowingly and unnecessarily destroyed, someone somewhere in the chain is being irrational. Given that EA is a public company, the obvious candidate for that somewhere is Wall Street. Your analysis se
889.
by rwallace 12y ago
What's the latest verdict on flame retardants? Last I heard, the conclusion was that they are carcinogenic, but you have to weigh the risk of dying of cancer in twenty years against the risk of dying in a fire tomorrow, and the best gu
890.
by rwallace 12y ago
Comparative advantage. Even if he is strictly better than you at everything you do, there is only one of him, and he can only do one thing at a time.
891.
by rwallace 12y ago
True enough. Is that the actual state of affairs?
892.
by rwallace 12y ago
Have any of the missing people ever been seen alive again? This article and the previous one on the topic posted here both seem to be saying no, the mortality rate is one hundred percent. If that's true, it suggests a personal rule for
893.
by rwallace 12y ago
Sometimes there is, yes. If you pay another company for services, it's strictly business. Hire an employee, and all sorts of primate emotions, politics, laws and so forth come into the picture. Sometimes that can more than outweigh the
894.
by rwallace 12y ago
But the universe isn't a zero-sum game, and R&D is like a lottery whose expected outcome is strongly positive: the majority of tickets still lose, but the winners far more than pay for the losers.
895.
by rwallace 12y ago
You would be astonished at how crazy people can get. Honestly, the author of this study took a huge risk and got lucky. If you're thinking of doing anything like this in similar circumstances, DON'T carry out similar actions witho
896.
by rwallace 12y ago
It's worth bearing in mind that coal is the most environmentally destructive of all energy sources, by a hefty margin. Wood is renewable, but most people don't live in places with the kind of big surplus of wood you would need for
897.
by rwallace 12y ago
I have no opinion on whether you should become a fan of professional sports; by all means do if you want. I do, however, have an opinion on which one if so. Supporting American football, which causes irreversible brain damage in 100% of pla
898.
by rwallace 12y ago
Consider the incentives. With an offline game, once you've bought the game, the transaction is complete. The developer has no incentive to do anything more to you except leave you with a happy memory so you recommend it to your friends
899.
by rwallace 12y ago
As someone who liked your documentaries, I think you're misinterpreting the previous poster. 'Production values' doesn't refer to skill or attention - those qualities are clearly present in your work. It just refers to t
900.
by rwallace 12y ago
I agree except for one thing: I am morally judging the situation. Just because market forces have given you the power to ruin the lives of people who trusted you, doesn't make it morally okay to do so.

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