simonh

37 ms·

601.
by simonh 3y ago
They didn’t have cane sugar, but needed something to fuel fermentation, so honey and dates were commonly used in Babylon and Assyria as well.
602.
by simonh 3y ago
No hops. A beer without hops is called Gruit, and before hops various other bittering herbs were often used.
603.
by simonh 3y ago
There’s more to knowing how to manage seeds effectively than knowing plants grow from them. >why…when you get enough.. That’s the problem, you don’t always get enough, and when you don’t people die. Usually the children and old folks fir
604.
by simonh 3y ago
Can we really put that down to value systems? You’re implying that the latter group made a choice, but for that to be true they would have to have developed the new technologies and chose not to use them.
605.
by simonh 3y ago
It needs to be able to store a complete representation of different versions of it's own state, in it's own state.
606.
by simonh 3y ago
Frankly, the US system isn't exactly a resounding vindication of written constitutions either. Arguably the UK system has displayed considerably greater flexibility. For example the US president is still basically an elected George III
607.
by simonh 3y ago
If you think about it, a computer's not going to be able to perfectly simulate it's own physical operation, so the limit of a system's ability to simulate things is it's own complexity.
608.
by simonh 3y ago
It's a bit of a stretch perfectly simulating one proton, I'm afraid. https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-co...
609.
by simonh 3y ago
The phone should be boring and consistent. It’s just a platform for the software. That’s what should be interesting.
610.
by simonh 3y ago
Sure, but "The spice must flow" specifically as a slogan is an iconic phrase original to the movie. It would be nice if it could be surreptitiously slipped into the new one somehow, as a tip of the hat to Lynch.
611.
by simonh 3y ago
They are also free to vote for a government that will protect their rights against egregious and plainly deceptive marketing practices, so they don't each have to do that stuff individually. Companies act as a collective enterprise, so
612.
by simonh 3y ago
I like it! Not sure it works though. We observe the expansion of the universe accelerating, with gravity too weak to counter it. Reversing that would mean it's collapsing faster than the gravitational attraction of it's contents c
613.
by simonh 3y ago
He built a company employing over a million people, created novel goods and services, including services my job depends on (AWS). The wealth of a man like Bezos isn't a pile of gold he wallows in like Scrooge McDuck, it exists in his s
614.
by simonh 3y ago
When I got my second Mac I ordered a fancy Apple mouse because it sounded cool. The first thing I installed was a game, to try out the graphics, which used right-click to aim and then while holding that left click to fire. Except the top of
615.
by simonh 3y ago
Can’t we already radiate heat into 3 dimensions?
616.
by simonh 3y ago
I don't understand the state of mind of the government elected in 2011. The whole system was set up under the previous government, it would have been costly and difficult to come clean and do the right thing, but they could have blamed
617.
by simonh 3y ago
Not been on that one, but I did get the chance to do the channel crossing from Dover once in one of the big ones. That was fantastic. I’d seen them on TV but it didn’t prepare me for the visceral reaction of seeing these giant machines lift
618.
by simonh 3y ago
We’re talking specifically about mental processes. I think we agree that all weather is a physical process, but not all physical processes are weather. Similarly all mental processes are physical, but not all physical processes are mental.
619.
by simonh 3y ago
As physicalists there is no bottom up or top down. The mental process of learning 2+2=4 doesn’t cause the physical process or vice versa. They are different ways of talking about the exact same thing. Mental processes don’t ’have Physical e
620.
by simonh 3y ago
It should be possible to calculate them likelihood of distributions with a given degree of apparent structure. Not a given structure, but the degree of variance from a typical random distribution.
621.
by simonh 3y ago
The Trump situation has forced me to re-evaluate. I was highly critical of GW, but to be fair I think he was genuinely trying to do the best for the US and its interests at the time. I don’t buy the idea that he was totally corrupt and only
622.
by simonh 3y ago
Oh sure, I still remember getting my first 1/4” tape of the GNU tools source code through the post. This is why it’s so hilarious to me when the kids nowadays complain that MacOS has different command line tools to Linux. “Why can’t th
623.
by simonh 3y ago
That’s not quite the same question. Most of the primordial hydrogen that goes through stars isn’t fused into anything else and therefore is still primordial hydrogen, but it has been in one or more stars.
624.
by simonh 3y ago
>The issue is that you can not make a law/regulation that says statement X about products Y is not allowed because its wrong/misleading. A court has to decide if it is wrong/misleading AFTER the fact and someone sued. Yes
625.
by simonh 3y ago
>Don't Agree to Disagree >While these are certainly preferable to conflict, settling for cooperation means that neither party actually has a chance to update their prior beliefs to get them closer to the truth.....Did either side
626.
by simonh 3y ago
Even if you don't persuade each other, clarifying misunderstandings of one's views and identifying any common ground you do have can be worthwhile.
627.
by simonh 3y ago
I've found that arguing constructively and respectfully can at least turn around an obnoxious and aggressive 'opponent' to calming down. It's not the default outcome, and it doesn't mean they were dissuaded of their
628.
by simonh 3y ago
The basic principle is that free speech does not include the right to incite or conspire to commit a crime. Misleading commercial statements falls under that principle, while political opinions generally don't, again as long as they&#x
629.
by simonh 3y ago
That's great for 9 to 5 type jobs, but some work just needs to be done outside office hours and on weekends. We have teams in other countries to help with time zone cover, but that can only get you so far.
630.
by simonh 3y ago
Many US government contracts required any operating systems purchased to be POSIX compliant, so MS had to be able to tick that box.

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