s_q_b

70 ms·

601.
by s_q_b 12y ago
I'm not as pessimistic as most about the potential for nootropics. The usual argument against them states that if there was a way to significantly improve neural performance, evolution would have found it already. However, our bodies a
602.
by s_q_b 12y ago
> ...when the costs of distinguishing good foo from bad foo are high... Ah, there's the part I was missing. I didn't think of it beyond government regulation. Interesting insight.
603.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Meh, who knows what would have happened. If the Russian Revolution had played out differently, Russia could have become a socialist country more like modern European states, still broken the back of the Germans on the Eastern front, helped
604.
by s_q_b 12y ago
If we want to avoid the nightmare of another superpower arising that behaves in that fashion, we would be wise to learn how it was able to amass so much power. Also, just because part a system is bad doesn't mean there's nothing t
605.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Don't forget the Valley's own government-sponsored roots: Navy money funded the Federal Telegraph Corporation and later Moffet Field, which begat Eitel-McCullough, a wartime manufacturer of radios and vacuum tubes. Varian Associat
606.
by s_q_b 12y ago
What's the relevance of Gresham's Law here? Not criticizing, just genuinely curious.
607.
by s_q_b 12y ago
When I said "nobody purchases directly," what I meant was that nobody presses a button to buy Pepsi or Coca-Cola when their ads air. Infomercials would be a good counterpoint, as would direct sale telephone advertisements. But the
608.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Absolutely spot on. The FCC even tried to create a net neutrality rule without reclassifying broadband providers under Title II, but it was struck down by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Verizon v. FCC (2014)[0] Nobody really wanted to
609.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Exactly. Given the vast series of networks and data miners tracking and analyzing my online interests, why can't a site manage to show me ads that I actually find interesting?
610.
by s_q_b 12y ago
I've always thought expecting direct revenue from web ads was looking at the problem upside-down. Nobody purchases directly from mainstream TV ads. The purpose is brand awareness, and sidebar ads have always seemed infinitely more usef
611.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Very interesting as well. I had no idea this existed.
612.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Fascinating. Inefficiency, to me, is opportunity (even if it can't always be leveraged.) A fundamentally different ad network is an idea I've been kicking around for a while. Perhaps I should get more serious. Do you know any reso
613.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Like you, I don't mind ads per se. I even feel badly blocking them, knowing that I'm depriving a content creator of revenue. But the issues you point out are the very reason I can't have them in my browser. I used a computer
614.
by s_q_b 12y ago
While it's amusing, it's not nothing. The release of the document, even redacted, means that it exists. Proof that it exists gives legal purchase to challenge the redactions moving forward or to seek alternative means of disclosur
615.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Tor's transparent and only my problem, Signal is easy to set up for laymen, GPGTools isn't hard to walk through (I know attorneys that use it just fine), OTR has plugins for everything that supports XMPP...
616.
by s_q_b 12y ago
To add to what was said, the only one of those measures that's potentially dangerous is the single guard node with manual rotation. It's not adequately studied, and I'm operating based upon my own research and intuition there
617.
by s_q_b 12y ago
@tor_user, your comment is dead, but since I have showdead on: I go beyond the .torrc config settings. I have a custom Python controller that uses Stem[0] to interface with the tor binary's control port to build my paths and circuits.
618.
by s_q_b 12y ago
I stuck with it through college, and the Federal Rules of Evidence are burned into my brain as well. :) > I suspect that's the sort of thing that's an annoying waste of time to trained professionals :-) In mock trial, we once
619.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Thanks, it's mostly security nuts like me about security related topics. Hopping through my own Tor nodes could be a bit counter-productive, as it would make attribution of my circuit quite a bit easier. I use an extended hop relay wit
620.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Comforting to see my own privacy stack is almost exactly the same: Tails running specially configured Tor (five hop circuit, permanent guard nodes, and routes through countries unlikely to cooperate with one another), GPG for email, OTR for
621.
by s_q_b 12y ago
First of all, any pro se litigant is going to see the following off the bat in civil litigation: motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, motion for summary judgment, motion to change venue, motion to suppress... Even if you defeat t
622.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Yes, you get assistance and leniency regarding court procedures as a pro se litigant, in some jurisdictions. Not a chance upon which I'd want to rely. But if you're dealing with an even mildly complex legal issue, I wouldn'
623.
by s_q_b 12y ago
Attacking your viewpoint is not ad hominem. There is nothing mystical about correctly understanding that the law is complex, or knowing that there are legal concepts that form a background to understanding those laws that are not contained
624.
by s_q_b 12y ago
There's a reason that every advanced legal system for the past two thousand years has involved professional representatives: there is no better alternative. Similarly, there is a reason many engineering professions have a Professional
625.
by s_q_b 12y ago
The system of legal representation is older than our legal system itself, having its roots in ancient Rome. While law must be comprehensible by the general citizenry, this is constantly at odds with the complexity needed to support equally
626.
by s_q_b 12y ago
No. A qualified defense must be made by someone with requisite legal knowledge, and while not everyone with that knowledge must necessarily be an attorney, of course the courts use a law degree and the bar exam as heuristics. The simple fac
627.
by s_q_b 12y ago
A fair justice system is by necessity complex, and a complex system necessarily requires guidance from an expert.
628.
by s_q_b 12y ago
A spinning liquid metallic outer core, with a certain composition, but yes (we think.) Even Earth's magnetosphere isn't fully understood.
629.
by s_q_b 12y ago
There's also a thousand variations on the theme of tidally locked planets in science fiction: from Larry Niven's (of Ringworld fame) world Jinx which was tidally locked to a gas giant, right back to Stapledon's Star Maker f
630.
by s_q_b 12y ago
I see your point as well, and it's quite well taken. On second reading Chomsky's quote doesn't seem as hand-wavy about the Fibonacci Sequence as it initially appeared. It's one of those topics that has such a myriad of f

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