smaddox

72 ms·

811.
by smaddox 11y ago
Yeah, because splitting R&D into short term and long term commercial impact worked so great in academia. /s The valley of death is directly caused by this mindset. R&D in the middle doesn't get funded because either side t
812.
by smaddox 11y ago
Poe's law?
813.
by smaddox 11y ago
Indeed. Oblig. hyperphysics: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/nucbin.htm...
814.
by smaddox 11y ago
Gotta love this gem: "Perhaps the most important achievement of UNIX is to demonstrate that a powerful operating system for interactive use need not be expensive either in equipment or in human effort: UNIX can run on hardware costing
815.
by smaddox 11y ago
I'm surprised all package managers don't use an IPFS-like system that uses immutable state with mutable labels and namespaces. Now that IPFS exists, and provides distributed hosting, it's even easier.
816.
by smaddox 11y ago
Most nations already have a progressive income tax (higher tax rates for higher marginal incomes). Adding basic income on top is effectively what you propose, but much simpler (cheaper) to implement. It's certainly true that the basic
817.
by smaddox 11y ago
If the economy isn't doing well, then the government SHOULD be running a deficit. If they run a surplus, then they're depressing the economy even more. Also, running a deficit by providing services (universal income included), is
818.
by smaddox 11y ago
Not as their main form of trade. See "Debt: the first 5000 years". That book also has an interesting discussion of the various theories about the origin of money, and the evidence supporting different ones.
819.
by smaddox 11y ago
That data is over a year and a half old. Does it still apply?
820.
by smaddox 11y ago
I'm not talking about eavesdropping, I'm talking full on MITM. Cut the connection and insert a middle man. Both sides think they're communicating with their intended target, but they're communicating with you. How does q
821.
by smaddox 11y ago
And yet, isn't it true that MITM attacks still work, as long as the MITM has the same hardware?
822.
by smaddox 11y ago
Interesting article. Looking at the code, it's pretty clear that this is not a particularly practical approach, but I think it points in the direction of where language design should head. Abstractions shouldn't be forced, unless
823.
by smaddox 11y ago
Essentially it's an implementation of the concept that metaprogramming should use the same semantics and syntax as normal programming. This is the case in Lisp, for example, but Lisp is not (or not typically) compiled, so Lisp metaprog
824.
by smaddox 11y ago
For every person who has savings to invest in X (robots included) there are 3 or more who don't. Over time, that ratio gets worse, because interest.
825.
by smaddox 11y ago
This is a common misconception. The reality is that banks lend money at interest rates above what the central bank offers them, meaning they can lend as much as they want irrespective of deposits, and then borrow reserves from the central b
826.
by smaddox 11y ago
That's a common misconception. In reality, banks don't need deposits in order to loan money. As long as they loan at an interest rate above that of the central bank (and they always do), they can borrow reserves from the central b
827.
by smaddox 11y ago
The only role banks fulfill that couldn't easily be replaced by a digital currency is financing speculative investments by providing loans. Unfortunately loans also expand the money supply (and contract the money supply upon repayment&
828.
by smaddox 11y ago
Fixed APR? I didn't think so.
829.
by smaddox 11y ago
You're mistakingly conflating negative interest rates and negative inflation (aka deflation). They are quite different; in fact, their correlation is quite strongly negative, i.e. increasing the interest rate tends to decrease the infl
830.
by smaddox 11y ago
It's very simple: political beliefs are rarely logically consistent (at least not through a logic that excludes human psychology). This is not limited to the US.
831.
by smaddox 11y ago
Wow... I'm amazed by this story... I can't believe it's this easy to make millions of dollars...
832.
by smaddox 11y ago
The people who benefit most from monetary inflation are those with large amounts of debt, not those with large amounts of cash. The middle class has the highest debt-to-cash ratio, so they benefit the most. However, the point is moot becaus
833.
by smaddox 11y ago
s/equilibrium/steady state/g Equilibrium and steady state are two very different things. Strictly, the path we eventually want to tread is not even steady state, since internal variables can change dramatically (e.g. switchin
834.
by smaddox 11y ago
HPMOR was just referenced in a NY Times article. Awesome.
835.
by smaddox 11y ago
Looks like they use LLVM backend, so they'll get low level optimisation for "free". The GC is also interesting: fully concurrent and lock-free.
836.
by smaddox 11y ago
Not sure I agree with your last statement. Our solar system can be modelled quite accurately and usefully as several overlapping 2-body systems. The interplanetary interactions are very small perturbations.
837.
by smaddox 11y ago
Don't hold your breath. The antireflection coatings and photonic crystals required to reach LED efficiencies would be much more complex (expensive) than the LEDs themselves. This is just grant fishing. It's not going anywhere. Sim
838.
by smaddox 11y ago
Indeed. This seems like a good use case for a cost/utility function. Very long wait times should be very high cost, while short wait times should be disproportionately low cost, etc.
839.
by smaddox 11y ago
Source? According to Intel, cost per transistor is still falling exponentially: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8367/intels-14nm-technology-in...
840.
by smaddox 11y ago
War is hell. The US tried to stay out of it as much as possible at first. Japan changed that, and they reaped what they sowed.

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