swatow

17 ms·

121.
by swatow 12y ago
What defines a "snide smartass" really depends on your viewpoint. I'm sure the people who murdered Emmett Till thought he was a snide smartass, who was living in a bubble of Northern race relations, and needed to be checked
122.
by swatow 12y ago
1) The groups you mentioned above are too heterogeneous to pass any blanket judgment. But statements against these groups could also be made in a specific context. And I'm sure the people making strong claims against these groups, a
123.
by swatow 12y ago
That's a great explanation. It's unfortunate that Peter Thiel chose to express his idea is such a confusing way, and also to imply that what he was saying somehow was counter to conventional economics.
124.
by swatow 12y ago
How is this characterization of techies different to the reasons someone might give for hating Blacks, Jews or Mexicans? Because it's true? Are you going to require the same standard of evidence for these claims you make about techie
125.
by swatow 12y ago
The fact that you use murdering Chinese as an example of the "weirdness" that you promote is truly disgusting. I'm not saying that you support such an act, but to include it in a list of things that you are generally positiv
126.
by swatow 12y ago
The problem with comments like yours is that you've chosen to shame the top level posters instead of replying to a single one of them. Shaming works well to enforce uniform beliefs in a tight knit social circle, such as you may have e
127.
by swatow 12y ago
Your point is different. The other poster's point is that wanting to preserve SF's culture against tech workers, is like wanting to preserve a city's culture against Chinese/Mexicans. Your point is that the article
128.
by swatow 12y ago
Where you see weirdness I see monoculture that calls itself counterculture. And nerd/tech culture has never been part of this. To try and rewrite the history of nerd/tech culture like this is a form of cultural appropriation. T
129.
by swatow 12y ago
By definition, driving up the price is never an externality. The actual externalities from AirBnB are the noise, danger and lack of community that these apartments impose on their neighbors. Even these would not really be externalities if
130.
by swatow 12y ago
In this context, Indians and Asians count as White. Why? Because in the narrative of the author, Whiteness is not a race, but rather a social construct designed to reinforce the privilege of Whites, and to enforce a uniform way of thinkin
131.
by swatow 12y ago
I'm commenting because I don't want this on the front page. Not that I am writing more comments that I would otherwise just to get it off the front page, but rather that I think that the reasons that this algorithm is used, apply
132.
by swatow 12y ago
It's useful to decouple social liberalism, i.e. that belief that there is no such thing as White culture, and there is no (cultural) harm from large numbers of immigrants from Mexico, from economic liberalism, i.e. the belief that clas
133.
by swatow 12y ago
I think that only 10% of English speakers think trans-Women are actually women. However that 10% are disproportionately powerful, so they are able to control how the word is used in the media, in the workplace, and in educational instituti
134.
by swatow 12y ago
I agree that it's a loophole, although if it was closed, exactly the same number of jobs would be "lost", because there is a cap. The only difference is that different people would get the H-1B's, which would be good fo
135.
by swatow 12y ago
I see two flagkilled top level comments and I assume they are saying "why do we need .... just for women". I assume that the flaggers believe that this issue has already been resolved, and debating this distracts from the real is
136.
by swatow 12y ago
I only just realized the Simon Peyton Jones (of GHC fame) works at Microsoft Research.
137.
by swatow 12y ago
Seems like you've run out of arguments and are resorting to social status games. Unfortunately that doesn't work so well online.
138.
by swatow 12y ago
that's a good question. I think the answer is that if we could prove BB(n) = K, then we just have to run this turing machine for K iterations, and either it finds a contradiction, or it doesn't. In the latter case, we have prov
139.
by swatow 12y ago
When I said Now we can't in practice compute 80^5000 directly, in the sense of writing down this many 1's I meant waht you referred to as "tally marks". I agree "1's" isn't quite the right way to p
140.
by swatow 12y ago
No, and that's the key point. His claim is that if you tried to express 80^5000 as an ordinary number, you would just end up going in circles. Your calculation would never terminate. Now we can't in practice compute 80^5000 dir
141.
by swatow 12y ago
Yes, Goedel's Theorem says you can be complete or consistent but not both, but only about systems that are stronger than Peano Arithmetic, i.e. systems that contain the axioms of Peano Arithmetic, as well as any other axioms. Usually t
142.
by swatow 12y ago
You've misunderstood the situation. I was referring to earlier work by Nelson in which he explains why he thinks Peano Arithmetic may be inconsistent. Later, in the incident you referred to, he claimed to have an actual proof. Terry T
143.
by swatow 12y ago
might be easier to use a language like Idris, which can check that functions are total (i.e. return a finite number in finite time).
144.
by swatow 12y ago
Goedel's incompleteness theorem uses Peano Arithmetic, which Nelson claims is (possibly) inconsistent. He develops his own "predicative" arithmetic, to which Goedel's theorem does not apply. (large pdf) https:/&#x
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by swatow 12y ago
Who said anything about "whites"? I never mentioned that word in my post. I was talking about people who specifically refer to "Anglo-Saxons" in a derogatory way. Are those people using the wrong word? EDIT: also, in
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by swatow 12y ago
Mathematician Edward Nelson has a very interesting take on "big" numbers. He claims that the exponential function is not necessarily total, and a number like 2^1000000000000 might not actually exist. The reason he singles out ex
147.
by swatow 12y ago
There seem to be two popular but contradictory views on HN. The first is that technology is creating a rift between those who know how to program, where jobs are being created, and those who don't, where jobs are being destroyed. The s
148.
by swatow 12y ago
I think there are extremely few cases when goto is justified in C++. Unlike C, C++ provides plenty of mechanisms to cleanup when exiting a function early. And as for breaking out of multiple loops, a "done" variable is not that
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by swatow 12y ago
A nice comeback when people equate Anglo-Saxon culture with suburban boredom
150.
by swatow 12y ago
One thing you may be missing is that big tech companies are hiring people with scarcer skills. I think the difference goes something like Startup - Willing and able to learn new technologies. - Willing to be responsible for a wide range of

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