amoruso

9 ms·

1.
by amoruso 3y ago
The short story you're thinking of is titled 'Trurl’s Machine'. It's the second story in the collection 'The Cyberiad'. ... a very good book, by the way.
2.
by amoruso 4y ago
Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an o
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by amoruso 4y ago
"Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy" He said it first, but I think your paraphrase is at least as good as the original formulation.
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by amoruso 5y ago
Greg Egan wrote a few of those. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_(series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel) Diaspora starts in this universe but ends up somewhere else.
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by amoruso 6y ago
That was funny. Laugh-out-loud funny. It read like a perfect satire of self-help pep talk advice.
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by amoruso 9y ago
John Cramer has been pointing this out for years (since the 1980s I think): "The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Nonlocality" https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.00039 Also, Bell's i
7.
by amoruso 9y ago
If anyone wants to learn more about Bell's inequality, the simplest (real, no bullshit) explanation I've ever seen is by David Griffiths. You can follow it if you know the basics of calculus: http://www.physics.umd.edu&
8.
by amoruso 10y ago
I'll add another recommendation for Tufte's writings on the Challenger explosion. It should be required reading for all engineers. People who criticize Tufte for oversimplifying miss the point entirely. It's not about analysi
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by amoruso 10y ago
The opposition to Galileo was not really religious or scientific. More than anything, it was political. You can't understand what happened outside the context of the religious wars of the time. His findings undermined the authority of
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by amoruso 10y ago
Here's what they're talking about, for those who want a picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Arm
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by amoruso 10y ago
It's not really ad hominem. More like constructive criticism of his rhetorical style.
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by amoruso 11y ago
The article doesn't give any technical details. The website of the profiled company, Geometric Intelligence, doesn't have any technical details. Cofounder Gary Marcus has a publication list at his academic webiste: http:/&#x
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by amoruso 11y ago
Searle makes two assertions: 1) Syntax without semantics is not understanding. 2) Simulation is not duplication. Claim 1 is a criticism of old-style Symbolic AI that was in fashion when he first formulated his argument. This is obviously
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by amoruso 11y ago
I'm guessing it was originally 10 km. Someone probably added a scale bar in km and then was told to change the label to US customary units.
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by amoruso 11y ago
If you want a second opinion, Cosma Shalizi reviews A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram: http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/
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by amoruso 11y ago
Yeah, it's good. Well written and not too long.
17.
Who Will Own the Robots?(technologyreview.com)
2 points by amoruso 11y ago|0 comments
18.
by amoruso 11y ago
Yeah it's bad. Also, I can't believe I forgot to mention Walter Duranty. He was writing around the time of these Hitler articles. As far as I know, no one paid him to do what he did - he just did it for the sake of journalist acti
19.
by amoruso 11y ago
This kind of thing still happens. I'll bet if you dug into the history of those Hitler pieces, you'd find out the Nazis paid some PR firm to arrange those articles. That's how it happens now. I'm sure it was the same the
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by amoruso 11y ago
ahem: “My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) — or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in a
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by amoruso 12y ago
This article reminded me of something I read a few years ago. What is it like to be really near a supernova? It's a quick read and entertaining too. Life (Briefly) Near a Supernova: http://www.nagt.org/files/nagt&#
22.
by amoruso 12y ago
The metallicity is listed as -0.55 [1]. Metallicity is on a logarithmic scale [2], so that's about 58% as many heavy elements as our solar system. That seems freakishly high for a star that old. That might be the only reason it has pla
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by amoruso 12y ago
Here's the original research paper if you're interested. http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.5602 I'll just quote their introduction instead of trying to summarize the paper: "Our goal is to create a single n