tbabb

20 ms·

121.
by tbabb 7y ago
MIT is allowed to use whatever behavior criteria MIT likes when determining who gets to participate in MIT. Also don't be surprised if lots of disparate organizations agree that certain behaviors are inappropriate. RMS and others are f
122.
by tbabb 7y ago
Being a leader of any sort makes it worse, but I don't think it's a necessary condition for justifying his removal. Each person contributes to the flavor of the community in which they participate. It is within the right of those
123.
by tbabb 7y ago
Ancient Greece, too.
124.
by tbabb 7y ago
Burning man has extensive planning and infrastructure, which has been built up over years of adapting to slow growth, and which goes on for months before the event opens. At burning man, people buy tickets months ahead of time, whose supply
125.
by tbabb 7y ago
While it may or may not be the primary motivation for research, I'd speculate that it's great for making stealth satellites.
126.
by tbabb 7y ago
This article is so bad it's basically saying nothing at all, and the headline is basically unsupported by the article. In fact, the quality/coherence of the whole thing seems to be about on par with those AI-generated articles fro
127.
by tbabb 7y ago
I think it is entirely reasonable that the government ban chemically addictive products which attract use by children.
128.
by tbabb 7y ago
Being recognizable is maybe one thing I could get past for the cool factor of having a unique paint job. But that's also a commitment to nuke your resale value. If you plan on replacing the car before it's scrap, vandalizing it li
129.
by tbabb 7y ago
Yeah, this article celebrates the closure of coal, which is great because coal is super dirty, but it's tallying up all the carbon emissions they put out as if that annual emission has been eliminated. That's super misleading give
130.
by tbabb 7y ago
The "businesses renting out their lots after hours" is an interesting model, though in high-density areas it's not clear that this would be enough, and might not be well co-located with residential demand. City-owned public i
131.
by tbabb 7y ago
...Can you really not see the huge difference in the faces?
132.
by tbabb 7y ago
> I'm concerned that any shiny object near a roadway needs to be carefully aimed not to blind drivers We seem to deal with driving near the ocean and other bodies of water just fine.
133.
by tbabb 7y ago
I think the criticism that a closed ecosystem is myopic and a competitive disadvantage is a fair one, though. Apple used to have a monopolistic stronghold on smartphones, but that is no longer the case. As in the nineties, a walled garden i
134.
by tbabb 7y ago
This resonates with me, but what caused me to definitively stop using the app was the spam notifications which literally cannot be turned off. That was the last straw of user-hostility that made the app too unpleasant to use. I switched off
135.
by tbabb 7y ago
Everyone is rightly ragging on Amazon for being terribly irresponsible and consumer-hostile in allowing counterfeit products to be sold on their platform. But doing what CVS is doing (independently testing all their stocked products) is not
136.
by tbabb 7y ago
Using decision theory to explain quantum mechanics seems like a huge mistake for a very simple reason: It confuses "ought" for "is". Decision theory makes statements about what one should do if one wants a certain ou
137.
by tbabb 7y ago
This analysis suggests a trivial solution, if it's accurate: Make a "shuffle" channel on Netflix which just starts playing a random show/movie which the algorithm has confidence you'll like. "Skipping" wou
138.
by tbabb 7y ago
I think one reason is self-selection bias: Because all programming languages are text, everyone who is a programmer is necessarily adept, comfortable, and intimately familiar with representing programs as text. There is a whole other kind o
139.
by tbabb 7y ago
It's a node-based programming language— think boxes and wires, or circuit diagrams. and you?
140.
by tbabb 7y ago
This is what I am currently working on: Making programming fluid and easy like spreadsheets (or alternately, elevating the niche occupied by spreadsheets into something that can be called "real programming"). (If this is your jam,
141.
by tbabb 7y ago
I am disappointed that the author ended on a "this is bad" message for something with such clear potential for good. Instead of tearing down, why did the author not apply the very thing he learned and use his article's influe
142.
by tbabb 7y ago
I wish we'd stop calling bitcoin "currency"— that is not remotely what it is. Currency has a number of important properties that allow it to fill its function, and cryptocurrency has basically none of them. I wrote about this
143.
by tbabb 7y ago
This is a limitation due to the fact that the compiler and the editor are different software. The compiler knows the type, but your editor doesn't, so the burden is thus on the programmer to either know or annotate the type by themselv
144.
by tbabb 7y ago
How does your expected 50-60% energy efficiency compare to the current energy efficiency of oil extraction? Extraction and especially refinement must be pretty inefficient. How do the end to end costs compare, and why do they fall the way t
145.
by tbabb 7y ago
Overproduction is also protection against famine and blight. Produce doesn't keep very long; you can't keep a large store of it in case this year's crop fails. You also cannot suddenly ramp up production in the event of catas
146.
by tbabb 7y ago
This is recorded from vibrations in rock, not in air. There is some sound in the very thin Martian atmosphere, and there is plenty of sound in the Martian crust.
147.
by tbabb 7y ago
Sounds a bit like a rockfall to me, perhaps nearby? The slow buildup and slower subsidence of the sound intuitively fits what I would expect for a rockfall, and also we know there are rockfalls on the surface of Mars. It would be neat if th
148.
by tbabb 7y ago
I don't think that's the right metric for assessing feasibility. Humans can do more than one thing at the same time.
149.
by tbabb 7y ago
I wonder how increasing the forestation of the planet by 40% would affect the planet's average albedo, and by extension the solar thermal energy retention.
150.
by tbabb 7y ago
"How to be happy" ----------------- How to be happy? 1. Do something meaningful, 2. Do something meaningful...3. Do something meaningful...4. Do something meaningful...5. Do something meaningful--(even if that is not your primary

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