sedachv

28 ms·

211.
by sedachv 7y ago
The fall in fertility in developed countries (whose populations are responsible for the majority of resource use) definitely had a lot to do with it.
212.
by sedachv 7y ago
Those are really poor analogies. What you call "using a computer" means using a pre-made application that turns the computer into an appliance. Instead of making inappropriate analogies (IMO usually a redundant phrase), look at
213.
by sedachv 7y ago
From Chapter 6 of the "Population Bomb," titled "What If I'm Wrong?": "To cover this contingency, I would like to propose an analogue to Pascal's famous wager… If I'm right, we will save the world. If
214.
by sedachv 7y ago
> There were also file systems with integrated revision support on VAX/VMS and other "midrange" systems such as Norsk Data/SINTRAN. Versioned file systems were developed for source code management and go back to ITS a
215.
by sedachv 7y ago
A lot of people here keep mentioning mainframes and reliability/uptime. Mainframes were not particularly great at uptime (it was not a prime concern for batch processing), until Tandem, which was founded specifically to make fault-tole
216.
by sedachv 7y ago
> And on linux I always set up local SSH servers on everything which comes with its own maintenance baggage. It sounds like you need to invest a little time in automating basic networking stuff (shell scripts do fine). I do not think the
217.
by sedachv 7y ago
Agreed. IMO the most significant work in system administration in the past 20 years. https://nixos.org/~eelco/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf
218.
by sedachv 7y ago
My system for multiple Debian and OpenBSD machines: Configuration files, secrets files, and personal scripts are stored in a git repository. There is a shell script that sets up symbolic links for the configuration files, /etc/hos
219.
by sedachv 7y ago
> The problem I'm referring to isn't conflict resolution, but rather spurious re-creation of files that have been deleted. That is conflict resolution, over the set of files. Which is why Unison provides the "reconciling c
220.
by sedachv 7y ago
Many people (myself included) use the ? suffix in Common Lisp as well. IMO it is a better convention.
221.
by sedachv 7y ago
> I would argue that it's a math thing, not an assembly thing. When you have a type system and boolean types, equating 0 and false is not a "math thing," it is more of a "mathematical illiteracy" thing.
222.
by sedachv 7y ago
> Anyone know the language design rationale behind the way Java does it? Because C did it, because Algol did it, because Fortran did it, because that is how assembly code works. Expressions require code to be compiled to something that u
223.
by sedachv 7y ago
> But the solution isn't to break them up and for society to become unproductive and un-automated again by forcing minimum wage, health insurance, guaranteed menial jobs etc. I don't know if you know anything about 1990s-early
224.
by sedachv 7y ago
> Erm, with pairwise syncing you still want a "server". I've used unison as my primarily file syncing for a decade, and trying to maintain a spanning tree among partially-available nodes/disks is a pain in the ass. An
225.
by sedachv 7y ago
> - Unison synchronizes files to files, but for a Dropbox-like system you really want deduplication for space savings (i.e. server-side storage is a bunch of pointers to content-addressed blocks.) > - in general, it's not clear t
226.
by sedachv 7y ago
> So a plant is actually bad at photosynthesising when it’s warm and there’s the most sunlight? Yes. That is one of the big reasons why it is difficult to grow crops in desert regions even with irrigation. > Why? Thermal properties of
227.
by sedachv 7y ago
https://jmp.chat/ is what I am considering for a replacement. The service is AGPL and is run by someone that cares about Free Software: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/meet-the-libreplanet-201.
228.
by sedachv 7y ago
Jean-Marc Jancovici has IMO the best analysis of energy options when it comes to climate change (his whole website is excellent reading), and he does not think that rail transit can directly substitute for car and truck use with today'
229.
by sedachv 7y ago
You need read up on agriculture basics before posting junk comments. > From other articles I found, it looks like the yield is expected to increase by about 13%. Omitting any mention of this feels like a political decision. That is becau
230.
by sedachv 7y ago
I previously made the observation that global warming induced nutrient density loss correlates with the mammal obesity trend: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18949373 Everyone here commenting about the great news about
231.
by sedachv 7y ago
Enzymes involved in photosynthesis break down with heat starting at around 20 degrees Celsius, and by 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) break down almost completely. Plants can use their stores of carbohydrates when photosynthesis is not
232.
by sedachv 7y ago
"It used to be the case that people were admonished to "not re-invent the wheel". We now live in an age that spends a lot of time "reinventing the flat tire!"" Alan Kay AMA: https://news.ycombinator.
233.
by sedachv 7y ago
> a conventional programing language for distribution to traditional cost effective hardware. In 1984, C was considered a new programming language. The VAX first came out in 1977, and the Sun 1 in 1982. Traditional hardware in 1984 would
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by sedachv 7y ago
> ambitious and willing to bend the rules. Please don't call organized crime a "willingness to bend the rules."
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by sedachv 8y ago
mp3.com[1] predated Soundcloud by a decade, and was amazing both for listeners and for independent artists. They were paying artists royalties per-download/stream in 1999. The site shut down in 2003 and all the music was lost.[2] I sti
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by sedachv 8y ago
You are promoting a dog-whistle phrase that refers to an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: https://www.salon.com/2018/11/04/how-far-right-conspiracy-th...
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by sedachv 8y ago
> Almost nobody buys books anymore. Can you use a search engine before posting nonsubstantive, dismissive comments? https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/b... I am not sure the total
238.
by sedachv 8y ago
What does a simple idea like "stop treating women as though they were all idiots" have to do with any particular culture? If you don't understand the difference between "stop insulting your female colleagues" and Ma
239.
by sedachv 8y ago
"Cultural Marxism" is neither about culture nor about Marxism. The term was coined by anti-Semite William Lind in a speech at a 2002 Holocaust denial conference: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelli
240.
by sedachv 8y ago
> How can this be explained? I have a much simpler explanation. Publishers and conference organizers like O'Reilly eventually saturate the market for Perl books and conferences (books especially, because used books start to cannibal

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