mikeash

6 ms·

1.
by mikeash 7y ago
And that explanation was that he’s done a bunch of valuable stuff. But your first answer to me was “justice.” These don’t match at all. The comparison with the African kid went over my head because approximately none of the people pouring s
2.
by mikeash 7y ago
You seem to be saying that it’s not really about “justice” at all, but rather that it’s purely about defending people who have done a lot of visibly valuable things. Did I get that right?
3.
by mikeash 7y ago
I don’t think it’s a false dichotomy at all. This same community discusses other things, far worse things, and we can compare them. When this community discusses victims of harassment who get fired for reporting it, there isn’t nearly this
4.
by mikeash 7y ago
Sorry, I’m going to call assholes assholes. I don’t know why people get so upset at swear words. People are saying all sorts of heinous shit in these comments, but apparently this is fine as long as you don’t use one of the Seven Deadly Wor
5.
by mikeash 7y ago
There are millions of more pressing injustices going on right now. The people attacking him didn’t do anything wrong either so who cares at all?
6.
by mikeash 7y ago
Here’s what I don’t get: why are you all so concerned about what happens to this guy? He didn’t get lynched. He’s not going to prison. He had a comfortable life and he will continue to have a comfortable life. Why does this asshole deserve
7.
by mikeash 7y ago
It will until it doesn’t. What troubles me is that it’s hard to tell whether the risk is 1% per year or 0.000001% per year.
8.
by mikeash 7y ago
Nukes are not that powerful. See: https://what-if.xkcd.com/15/
9.
by mikeash 7y ago
“In the cold war people built concrete bunkers in their basement for fear of a nuclear Armageddon.” It’s not like this threat went away. People just stopped paying attention to it.
10.
by mikeash 7y ago
Probably because satellites in LEO are too low to get such a broad view, and the camera-equipped satellites that are higher up are all over the equator.
11.
by mikeash 7y ago
Reminds me of a time I was searching for parking in downtown Washington, DC. Block after block was full. I eventually came to a street that had no cars parked at all. Jackpot, right? Must be some obscure rule prohibiting parking there. I
12.
by mikeash 7y ago
And what’s the term for a figure that’s hard to estimate but which you guess at anyway? An “assumption.”
13.
by mikeash 7y ago
There’s always an implicit (or explicit) “if conditions X, Y, and Z hold” on these statements. That prediction wasn’t wrong, conditions just changed, largely because predictions like this managed to wake people up to the dangers. Ignoring t
14.
by mikeash 7y ago
The Drake Equation is perfectly reasonable. You just have to interpret it as “these assumptions imply aliens” rather than “there are definitely aliens.”
15.
by mikeash 7y ago
Yes, sometimes things go wrong. But if you’re always late, then you need to get started earlier.
16.
by mikeash 7y ago
One is about a year, the other is close to five years.
17.
by mikeash 7y ago
Wasting time and money getting lost, getting separated from companions with no way to find them again, significantly reduced transportation options, having some sort of emergency and having a much tougher time dealing with it. I have a dece
18.
by mikeash 7y ago
Why every 4-5 years?
19.
by mikeash 7y ago
Anymore? Advertising has been the major source of newspaper revenue forever.
20.
by mikeash 7y ago
Historically, progress has resulted in more environmental damage and CO2 emissions. Relying on progress to fix these things is counting on a fundamental shift to happen. By comparison, progress historically has always increased GDP, so co
21.
by mikeash 7y ago
Traffic police around here seem uninterested in enforcing any rules other than red lights and speed limits.
22.
by mikeash 7y ago
No, the US builds lots of real stuff. It’s not just assembly. Not by a long shot. The reason the trends are in opposite directions is because of increasing productivity. The number of worker-hours needed to build a car is much lower than in
23.
by mikeash 7y ago
Exercising backups isn’t always a good idea. Testing your UPS? Yes. Testing your emergency parachute? No. I don’t see a pressing need to test my no-phone backups, and a lot of downside.
24.
by mikeash 7y ago
Manufacturing employment has been on a long, steady decline. Manufacturing output is experiencing steady growth and has never been higher. The US is the second largest manufacturer in the world and will stay that way for the foreseeable
25.
by mikeash 7y ago
The dude hates doctors and nurses so much that he thinks they deserve to be physically attacked. And yet he is desperate for their services. This is a contradiction. I’m attempting to point this out.
26.
by mikeash 7y ago
There’s lots of discussion here about UI design and intuitive interfaces in here, but not much about training. Computers are, by far, the most complicated machines that people are expected to be able to operate without any training whatsoev
27.
by mikeash 7y ago
Intelligence is approximately a normal distribution so the mean and median are almost exactly the same.
28.
by mikeash 7y ago
The #2 story on the front page right now is “A photo survey of the blackboards of mathematicians.” Maybe front page rank isn’t about how important or pressing the story is?
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by mikeash 7y ago
You could stay home instead.
30.
by mikeash 7y ago
I can totally see being upset with the people in administration and billing. But how can you be that upset with the doctors and nurses, when your whole complaint is that you wanted more of their attention?

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