normalhuman

7 ms·

1.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Come on now, don't be disingenuous. Of course they are mutually exclusive, because you mean "not being reddit" as in "we are better than reddit" -- an elitist stance.
2.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> When I see comments criticizing others' comments I am always reminded of reddit. I think this is exactly what you're hoping to avoid when you come to HN. > I don't think HN is going to become a better place by becomin
3.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> This seems extremely pedantic. "Use case" as it's used today basically just means "case" or "situation" for a particular project or task or goal. It's not business jargon or a buzzword term, even
4.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> You're picking much too fine a nit here. I think you feel that way because of the HN/tech echo chamber. Nobody says or feels the need to say "use case" outside of such circles. > But if if this is a hard-stop ite
5.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> HN has a history of comments like this that criticize other comments and add nothing to the discussion I disagree. HN is a place that seems to pride itself on the quality of its discussions, and on a higher intellectual caliber when co
6.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Corparate-speak that makes its way into common language is frequently justified post-hoc by subtle differences in meaning like the ones you allude to. The problem is that these differences are personal and subjective. Ask someone else, they
7.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> This is what happens when incentives are not aligned with regulations. No, this is what happens when one leaves the fox guarding the hen house. If incentives were aligned with regulations, there would be no need for regulations to begi
8.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> Why are you so bitter? I don't know, it's just how I am. > I doubt PhD+ people do that type of research "just for fun" Well you'd be surprised. All the professional mathematicians I know do math for its own
9.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> Yeah but now, what? "now, what?", what? > What was learned from this? That 42 is the sum of three cubes. > Why did we look for a solution in the first place? They did. I do not believe that you were involved. > How i
10.
by normalhuman 7y ago
The very idea of a "scientific theory" is a philosophical concept, and your implicit assertion that empiricism trumps abstract reasoning (which I am here neither agreeing with nor opposing) is in itself a philosophical position. P
11.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> How can it be a state machine if you aren't mutating it? You are confusing a state machine (which is an abstract model of computation) with the behavior of a program implementing it. The set of possible states and the conditions o
12.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Maybe they do disagree with me. It is impossible to know, because they are not free to say what they really think -- which is another fundamental problem with not-democracy.
13.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> Russia is a democracy. The US was a democracy when it genocided the native Americans. askmike is right. Democracy alone won't help Hong Kong. China will not stop. Pacifist Hong Kong will be crushed, regardless the form of governme
14.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Nothing is perfect, but dictatorship is worse. I live close what remains of the Berlin wall. People risked their lives to jump it and escape to the democratic side. Nobody ever wanted to escape the democratic side and jump in the other dire
15.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> I don't see where OP is implying that individuals suffering from unfortunate accidents outside of their control are driving up health care costs No, OP is just proposing that help is denied to everyone who needs it and can't
16.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Have you read any of them?
17.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> my answer to that is that the government should not be paying for people's health care. It enables bad behaviors and it forces people who make good choices to subsidize people who make bad choices. Which is legitimately bullshit.
18.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> The whole debate about nutrition confuses me. It is only confusing if one spends too much time paying attention to those who want to sell you something, or develop some sort of guru personal-brand (I vomit in my mouth a little bit when
19.
by normalhuman 7y ago
You are right, and it is also the case that totalitarian policy can be implemented in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. It can be a last resort measure to save a society (e.g., when the UK canceled elections to deal with the N
20.
by normalhuman 7y ago
The idea of "embodied AI" has been around for some decades. It is reasonable that, from a practical engineering perspective, creating "human-like" intelligence becomes more feasible if this intelligence is embodied in th
21.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Please avoid ad hominem and explain your problem with the idea.
22.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Sure, that is why I mention the tragedy of the commons. People (me included, I'm not claiming to be a saint) very easily rationalize exchanging short-term personal comfort for the long term social good, and the adtech people know this
23.
by normalhuman 7y ago
The average user certainly doesn't worry about any of this, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't. The worst, of course, is the tragedy of the commons dynamics. A lot of harm that comes from surveillance capitalism does n
24.
by normalhuman 7y ago
> If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. Of course, and they do it out of self-interest. On one hand, 495 dollars are not worth losing a client for life. More
25.
by normalhuman 7y ago
Open Source failed. It remains as something that is useful to build software, but its political aims were defeated. The political goal was to give users absolute control over their computational environments. In reality, we have less and le
26.
by normalhuman 7y ago
I've been reading so much about the death of symbolic AI and the complete victory of statistical approaches lately, that I suspect that a new symbolic hype-cycle is about to start. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but if you'
27.
by normalhuman 7y ago
I am not a designer nor a software engineer, nor a business person. I am just a (heavy) user of all sorts of software for a very long time. I am a competent coder, and I code for research and pleasure. I don't have a dog in this, let&#
28.
by normalhuman 7y ago
The authors only claim to have strong results for the studied demographics, make further remarks about other possible biases, and argue these results provide some insight and encourage further research. This is perfectly fine. Not all field
29.
by normalhuman 7y ago
My favorite anti-productivity introspections: - Remember that you are going to die. Time flies, have you noticed? Is that status symbol that you are pursuing really that important? Is it ever going to make you happy? - There is more wisdom
30.
by normalhuman 8y ago
I think you misunderstand me. You are talking about computers and technology, I am talking about crayons, paint, musical instruments... Things that you can immediately use to create without restrictions. There was a small window of time whe

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