wrp

55 ms·

871.
by wrp 4y ago
> I just don't understand the level of virtriol... I can't comment on the social phenomenon of Amazon mob reviews, but the attitude of Tolkien toward his work is relevant. He incorporated a tremendous amount of material from hi
872.
by wrp 4y ago
> ...Can't some popular stories grow and evolve beyond one, albeit original, author's imagination? Of course they can , but it's also the case that Tolkien was extremely defensive against divergent interpretations of his
873.
by wrp 4y ago
> ...there’s nothing in the Legendarium suggesting there can be unions of anything other than Men and Elves, Men and Orcs, and Elves and Maiar. Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth [1] has a long section discussing this. Tolkien re
874.
by wrp 4y ago
xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/566/
875.
by wrp 4y ago
Similar story with the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanoi_Rat_Massacre )
876.
by wrp 4y ago
> ...you can AMA about Down's here if you want... I've wondered about modern education for children with Down's. My impression is that they currently show much greater cognitive development than what I remember from 50 yea
877.
by wrp 4y ago
If you are interested in controversies over issues of race in Tolkien's work, I've just started reading a new book that seems quite good, Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth .[1] Most writing I see on this is no better than
878.
by wrp 4y ago
I was a big fountain pen user in the 1990s, but largely got away from it due to changing conditions. Paper: Back then, I could walk into Staples or the campus bookstore and buy inexpensive paper pads that worked well with fountain pen ink.
879.
by wrp 4y ago
For the best performance at a given price point, one of the major Japanese brands (Pentel/Pilot/Sailor). The Lamy Safari also performs very well, but is less durable, less comfortable to grip (for some), and may write somewhat wet
880.
by wrp 4y ago
The fountain pen community is probably the most non-snarky online community I've ever interacted with.
881.
by wrp 4y ago
> Fetishizing the tools used to accomplish things, rather than doing the thing... What you are describing is fascination with the engineering aspect of things. That's something I would expect the HN crowd to easily relate to.
882.
by wrp 4y ago
The article on ball lightning in Thewlis' Encyclopedic Dictionary of Physics (1967) judged that it didn't really exist. Although it is still not understood, and even not established to be a single phenomenon, there seems to be w
883.
by wrp 4y ago
This is an occasion to remind folks of Harold Cohen's AARON, over which much ink has been spilled. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARON )
884.
by wrp 4y ago
This is about British culture. While I never spent time at UK schools, my impression has been that expectations of active social life are greater in the UK than in the USA. That said, the attitude he describes seems similar to the popular i
885.
by wrp 4y ago
> Write your problem to the most senior developer in an email/slack but don't press send... Reminds me of the scene in Galaxy Quest (1999), when the Thermian engineer asks "Tech Sergeant Chen" about a technical prob
886.
by wrp 4y ago
This is a well known phenomenon in the study of the psychology of writing. Although we may start writing with an outline in mind, at certain points it feels more natural to go in a direction other than what we planned. This effect becomes m
887.
by wrp 4y ago
Participating in discussions on HN is good practice in expressing your ideas. Of course, quality of feedback varies a lot.
888.
by wrp 4y ago
I agree with this. It's not infrequently that I feel I have a clear idea of something, only to try writing it out and discover that I don't. Most of us here have heard the story about Feynman, when he decided that if he couldn&#x2
889.
by wrp 4y ago
You can get the same effect with a regular pillow. Just add an extra one to raise your head a bit. I know someone who uses that technique to reduce snoring.
890.
by wrp 4y ago
Funny story...A few years ago, my online reference hunting turned up a paper from China with three Chinese authors, and also exactly the same paper (down to the formatting and footnotes) from three Indian authors in India.
891.
by wrp 4y ago
The correct answer is given by Andrew Gelman right at the top: "Unfortunately, no, I don’t know of any heuristic, beyond using tools such as GRIM to check for consistency of reported numerical results." The question is essentially
892.
by wrp 4y ago
> The United States is too young to indulge in medievalist fantasies... Medievalism was hugely popular in the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and remains a significant influence today among hippy/New Age types. The famous Oreg
893.
by wrp 4y ago
This collection of papers may be more appealing to the HN crowd. They give a more technical critique of the practice of economics. Alfred S. Eichner. (1983). Why Economics is not yet a Science. 1. Introduction. 2. What do we mean by askin
894.
by wrp 4y ago
> It’s been done this way since the revolutionary war. Are you sure about that? I thought expat taxation was instituted during the Civil War.
895.
by wrp 4y ago
This seems to be an appropriate thread to ask, how is the US Exit Tax not a human rights violation? By birth, US citizens are considered the property of the US government and have to purchase their freedom.
896.
by wrp 4y ago
When I was at the University of Hawaii in the 1980s, the main library would always have one isle of books out for fumigation. I guess they just worked through the whole collection then started over. I also made use of a small special collec
897.
by wrp 4y ago
Yeah, but...like...that's not nearly as annoying as...like, you know...those Americans who...like...umm...do that thing with "like"...uhh...like practically between every clause. And I should know, because...like...I'm A
898.
by wrp 4y ago
I think that you are thinking of prayer in terms of what you pray for, while I was referring to your procedure for performing a prayer.
899.
by wrp 4y ago
"Reached out to" currently tops my list of office parlance that I'd like to see go away.
900.
by wrp 4y ago
You and he are using "science" for different things. He is talking about a methodology, and you are talking about social institutions. It's like the difference between "prayer" and "the Church". The method

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