thomas_howland

7 ms·

1.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
That ignores the role of actual social networks and social proof in the construction of consensus reality. "Our" AI says it's real, and "your" AI says it's fake, and one can debate the margins - just as one de
2.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
The other thing is that because of CAFE standards, there is convergent evolution towards maximally aerodynamic blobs.
3.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
The point is that after you have requested a lawyer they are obliged to refrain from questioning you.
4.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
It appears by "safety concerns" the author means "right wingers might be able to chat on the platform". I'm not sure Discord wants to put themselves in the position of weaponizing their platform to suppress particu
5.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Depending on how underwithheld you are, you can avoid tax underpayment penalties.
6.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Be less sensitive. The role of manichaeism in art is underappreciated.
7.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
8.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Approximately zero of those are unlawful. "Off-year elections"? Really? A high vote count is not an unmitigated good.
9.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Single family homes are historically how populations insulate themselves from the consequences of the policies the NYT advocates. On a macro scale, they're a defensive architecture. They make your neighborhood expensive enough that t
10.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Not that surprising; can you recognize random Bollywood stars?
11.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Exactly. "We don't store your picture, we store an abstracted entity that allows us to recognize your picture in the future." The latter part is what people are concerned about anyway - the abstracted representation of &quo
12.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
There is also the fact that Tesla purchasers tend to be from high socioeconomic classes, even more so than the baseline (extremely predictive) education / occupational category / credit score triptych would indicate. Most insuran
13.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Source? Noncompetes are disallowed in CA, and federal (and probably state) law prohibits a ban on employees sharing salary information amongst themselves. But AFAIK there is no direct prohibition on a contractual obligation not to disclose
14.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
How is "software to run dollar stores" different from generic retailing software?
15.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
It's far from "government barely existing". They exist in minimal form solely to extract resources from any remaining piece of value in the city. Eg: "Then earlier this year, he got a letter saying 333 Midland wasn’t u
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by thomas_howland 9y ago
Hand-harvestable-only crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Basically the CA Central Valley.
17.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
We are absolutely not. Productive farmland in the USA is fairly expensive and farmers are extremely interested in preserving its value. Most "destroyed" topsoil is due to eg suburban developments spreading into former agricultur
18.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already - the guy running the tractor/combine/etc is mostly making sure nothing breaks and keeping an eye on things (which is important when y
19.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
So do most contractors.
20.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
There is a huge difference between taking a loan "on someone's behalf" (as their representative, eg by someone with power-of-attorney) versus via impersonating them. The former is rare but legitimate; the latter is fraud.
21.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
This is very silly. FFLs are already prohibited from selling to abusive spouses (if there is any sort of domestic violence conviction or restraining order) and the mentally ill. They also reserve full rights to decline any sale, which the
22.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
I don't see this in terms of whether tech co's should "ban hate speech". I see it in terms of whether they should decide to turn themselves and their employees into political targets, especially in the context of escala
23.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Temporarily at best. They have been active targets for Dem takeover for decades and absent massive population shifts the demographics will fairly shortly ensure that occurs.
24.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
I would be extremely annoyed if my mortgage or credit card company actually tried to foist some advise on me.
25.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Credit scores are loose proxies for a conscientiousness score (which is why they correlate with all sorts of useful stuff like likelihood you're going to wreck an apartment, get in a motorcycle accident, or abscond with the till). How
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by thomas_howland 9y ago
All of the above, plus VCs likely worried about giving excuses for being targeted by sexual harassment claims.
27.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Taxing "robots" is silly, mostly because it's impossible to define what a "robot" is in a remotely non-distortionary way or that doesn't require a horde of accountants to argue out. Taxing "capital",
28.
by thomas_howland 9y ago
Every time I see basic internet infrastructure experiencing issues, my default is to think about who is testing a new cyberweapon or censorship mechanism. BGP has been known as trust-reliant for a while.
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by thomas_howland 9y ago
The wrecking bar also works great at deterring free riders.
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by thomas_howland 9y ago
A 10 AM Bay Area earthquake is the highest plausibility * severity event you're likely to experience around here on a day to day basis - leaving some people with a 25 mile commute back to a structure that might or might not be standing

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