ObviousScience

8 ms·

121.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
What's wrong with floppy disks? For certain kinds of highly sensitive information transport, a floppy disk is probably a better idea than a flash drive. I suppose you could use CDs, but floppy disks seem easier to destroy.
122.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Actually, in 2003, the voters passed an initiative mandating that police lower their enforcement of marijuana in Seattle[1]. [1] http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Two-years-later-littl...
123.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I don't believe the claim of good faith that you propose: I think that they knew they were committing crimes and that they intended to get away with it, because they could count on people like you to not hold them accountable. I'm
124.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Except a) that torture in the report didn't last for a few minutes and b) that it's less effective than other methods and more likely to obtain false information. So if I only had a couple hours and actually wanted to save my fami
125.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I prefer having to add the {}'s and ;'s, even if the spacing is the same, because they provide a clear and definite bound on scoping, which (unfortunately) often gets messed up in Python.
126.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I type rather quickly (fast enough that I can type faster than I can compose), but still prefer pen and paper when reasoning. It's because the pen and paper mixes diagramming, text, and non-linear note taking in a completely different
127.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Why do you think those correlations don't have predictive power, eg, that if you give me a graph of the pirate rate over a long period of time, I can't make a pretty good guess about the global warming rate? Now, obviously, these
128.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
That doesn't mean that I should aim for an even blend of the various things though: in the case of your investment example, it makes sense to preferentially select for certain kinds of financial instruments and only have a minority por
129.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
> very poor platform to base handing out algebra tests in interviews without establishing causality Why? It probably shouldn't be your only criterion, but if it has a high correlation, why wouldn't that be sufficient for handi
130.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
> If they didn't get a java intro class, how do you think they would have done with something as algorithmic as an assembly language, a functional language, or understanding the nuts and bolts like Turing machines and automata? I wo
131.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
There's lots of math you can teach that isn't basic numbers though! Symmetries, commutativity, associativity, transitivity, basic algebra/equation solving, some geometry, etc. Teaching these ideas gives children a language to
132.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Warrant canaries actually are a relevant distinction: the state has the ability to compel you not to reveal something, but rarely if ever the ability to compel you to speak, outside of testifying (at least, in the US). Dismissing them tryin
133.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Terrorist groups are nothing like the barbarians that eventually brought down Rome, and I think you know it. You've spent this entire thread making poor excuses for completely irrational behaviors and trying to justifying sickening, in
134.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I'm ideologically against scientists profiting off their papers, because it's a poor incentive and harms us all, especially if they're already being funded by the public. I see absolutely no reason that a publicly funded scie
135.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Generators don't have either memory locality or fast indexing, which are basically the two defining features of an array in virtually every programming language. They're nothing like arrays, except that you can iterate over them.
136.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Your theory doesn't explain why we and fish share developmental similarities such as pharyngeal pouches, why there is such protein similarity between us and other mammals, why our bone structure is incredibly similar with other mammals
137.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
This is actually a problem with a lot of computer games: it's easier to make the AI super-human than it is to make it make realistic mistakes. This comes up in situations like fighting games, racing games, and to some degree, RTS games
138.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Part of the basis is that most citizens simply don't have the time to have informed opinions on topics such as this, and hence we'd end up with a lot of ignorant opinions voted in, because the majority don't even really under
139.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
You say that sarcastically, but isn't that the very basis of using a republican system rather than a direct democracy, and a well known problem with direct, majority-wins democracy?
140.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Didn't a lot of major corporations get in trouble recently because they colluded to stop engineers from correcting this imbalance? Your argument seems to ignore that market forces agreed that engineers were underpaid, and it was only b
141.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Why do you believe we can train automated cars to deal with emergency situations or adverse conditions, but not airplane autopilots? What, fundamentally, prevents innovations in processing power and automation systems from being able to do
142.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
That criminals can't afford it when it's ~4x the price seems incredibly suspicious. Maybe it's not worth their money now, but I'm skeptical that having to pony up ~4x the money is going to stop an organized crime syndica
143.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I think that there's a strong case for starting over, and doing it with your second suggestion in mind. Much of our fundamental design is a whole generation (20-30 years) old in architecture, and has various modifications tacked on top
144.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I suppose whether or not I agree depends on what you mean by complicated: there's complexity of an algorithm implementation and there's complexity of program structure. I would think that you'd want an architect to work on no
145.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Partly, my rate as a freelance developer is to cover four things that generally would be paid by an employer, but which I (personally) don't consider directly billable when free lancing: 1. Times I'm not working, the effort of fin
146.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Well, they need about 38500 words, so it seems possible to do without having to use both "lamp" and "lamps", but it's probably not possible to avoid every pair of similar seeming words, eg "principle" and
147.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I dropped out of a teaching track to switch to hard math and CS because of the cliquish behavior and their constant negative comments about men creating a hostile environment - much the same complaints women make about the tech sector. Sayi
148.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
Yes? The point of applied mathematics is to understand if the same driving forces which cause clothing trends also govern other human behaviors, and to extract out these commonalities (or what is "really important" about the event
149.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I actually think it's simpler: create a special kind of tort citizens can bring against police departments for illegal policing (or other crimes against citizens) which is funded (at least partially) out of the bonuses of the officers
150.
by ObviousScience 12y ago
I'm very disturbed by the callousness with which he brags about violating the constitution to get extra-legal justice. I'm also confused why people always (largely rhetorically) wonder why Americans don't trust officials and

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