wladimir

42 ms·

361.
by wladimir 15y ago
I really like this idea. You'd essentially have to describe the same system twice, from two angles, and the compiler cross-validates them. This is more work, but I think this will help humans understand what it does, and what it is supposed
362.
by wladimir 15y ago
Alarmists have been crying this out since at least the Luddites[1] and it hasn't come true yet It hasn't come true yet . That doesn't prove or disprove anything. Either they were far ahead of their time, or it will never happen. That's n
363.
by wladimir 15y ago
In a way, they are. People haven't changed that much since then. However, economic models need spring into existence from the ground up. They are emergent. The world is too complex for them to be designed by theorists. This is why base ca
364.
by wladimir 15y ago
I think it's also a matter of what kind of world we want. For example: Do you choose to use software instead of employing a person because you prefer the software, or would you prefer to hire a person but choose software because it is cheap
365.
by wladimir 15y ago
reading thousands of pages of bills, proposals, analysis, point, counter-point, etc etc etc, is boring and a time-sink A crowd-sourcing approach could certainly work here. People will go through boring work if they think it is worthwhil
366.
by wladimir 15y ago
A literal democracy would have everyone being able to vote on any law at any level, which is clearly impractical It used to be impractical due to obvious infrastructure reasons. But with the internet, is it still? And I'm not sure that th
367.
by wladimir 15y ago
Right -- I'm not sure about the MacBook, but in many cases the webcam led is software-directed, not hardware-directed. So a small change to the driver (or firmware) can make it record without enabling the led.
368.
by wladimir 15y ago
It's no longer a democracy, but at least it'd be transparent and honest.
369.
by wladimir 15y ago
somehow everything is mostly the same Because it's really hard to let go of the "cosy" single-threaded, sequential model. I expect there will always be a place for it, as it gives important guarantees. Just like mainframes still exist (th
370.
by wladimir 15y ago
Yes it is a very thought-provoking article, similar his "the free lunch is over" in 2005. The upcoming jungle sounds like a great adventure. Many interesting challenges ahead. Though it's very, very hard to get rid of the sequential mindset
371.
by wladimir 15y ago
It does. The technical implementation can have a lot of effect on the chilling effect of a law. Let's take the extremes. If the technical implementation is " we'll send a drone to fire a missile at your building ", people will be much more
372.
by wladimir 15y ago
Or they could simply wrap it in a zip/rar file, with a public (but different) password. Or code it as a video format that the hosting site doesn't know. Old tricks that are basically impossible to block. There are so many ways to recode inf
373.
by wladimir 15y ago
If it only was so simple... no matter what, it costs companies such as Dropbox a lot a lot of extra effort to appease all possible companies that can file complaints. That could cause them to go out of business, to have to charge more money
374.
by wladimir 15y ago
Agreed; this is not a generational issue, but a world-view issue. Centrally controlled versus free (as in freedom) and distributed. Centralized versus decentralized. The same kind of "battles" are happening this very moment around: - Food (
375.
by wladimir 15y ago
I'm afraid they won't stop until they control all horizontal digital communication between people. This includes sites like YouTube, forums, social network sites, everything that makes the internet "alive". The control mechanisms needed to
376.
by wladimir 15y ago
I mean worldwide. Excluding the waste caused by production (in China, Taiwan, etc) of things consumed in the western world would be a more than a bit hypocritical.
377.
by wladimir 15y ago
Right, hadn't thought about that, they could also leak information. Luckily in the case of files you can easily do something about it, by encrypting them client-side or using a storage provider client that handles that for you.
378.
by wladimir 15y ago
There is a significant difference though: If the bank takes money from your account, you notice it. If the file storage provider makes a copy of your file, you don't notice it. You'll never know how the file leaked. (sure, the bank could pe
379.
by wladimir 15y ago
His point is that even if you, and all other households managed to get their waste to 0% (unlikely), that still only would make 3% difference in the total amount. Which is better than nothing but still only a drop in the bucket.
380.
by wladimir 15y ago
97% of waste is industrial? That's pretty shocking to me. I wonder what part of this waste is from production of our cherished technological gadgets and computer equipment, replacing the gadgets of yester-year. Which are generally still wor
381.
by wladimir 15y ago
It is top-down resource allocation, plain and simple. Very interesting for a country that calls itself a "free market capitalism". I guess that is true to the point that those at the top are free to invest the money as they like (and even "
382.
by wladimir 15y ago
Logic is not the only, or even the most important, factor which undermines productive debate. Logic is only a means to an end. With the advent of computer technology it is too easy to think that logic is what runs (or should run) the worl
383.
by wladimir 15y ago
but which often lack the power, flexibility or usability of commercial software because no-one wanted to write the edge cases or spend the time doing tedious polishing-up work. Yes, the edge cases, the personalization, the polishing. Ther
384.
by wladimir 15y ago
Well in contrary to the SOPA people, the SOAP people aren't trying to forcibly push SOAP on all of us with laws and treaties. There's enough alternatives. Let them use SOAP :p
385.
by wladimir 15y ago
None of these seems likely to be better at either producing high quality works or distributing them to wide audiences than an economic system such as copyright I think that was a common sentiment at the end of each "age". How to go from h
386.
by wladimir 15y ago
My point is that a work that is just information , no matter how high quality, will be copied. There is no scarcity. Throughout history, work has always been either about making physical objects, food, or services rendered to either a pers
387.
by wladimir 15y ago
Some of us prefer quality to quantity. Sadly, producing good quality usually requires a significant amount of hard work, and that isn't going to change any time soon. You just validated my point. The people that prefer quality still pay f
388.
by wladimir 15y ago
Exactly. A prostitute performs a personal service for you. Not paying directly hurts him/her. When copying information on the other hand, nothing happens, you don't feel it when your information is copied. (yes, you can say it does indirect
389.
by wladimir 15y ago
When information is a given, people will focus on the things more important to us than information. I imagine in 2112 (if humankind is still alive...) they will look back at this time and wonder why the hell we were so obsessed with informa
390.
by wladimir 15y ago
And intolerant as well. Let the guy live like this, if he wants, and write about it. Why are HNers feeling so attacked by that? He's not claiming that everyone else is doing it wrong, is he? Even though I like owning stuff and wouldn't give

More ›