Viewing profile — astalwick

If a child or a teacher at a school caught covid, the entire class was fully quarantined for a minimum of 14 days and two negative covid tests were necessary for anyone in that cla…

It was possible in other countries. My children (Quebec) were in class all of last year, except for a 10 day period in January - the tail end of a local lockdown at the height of t…

We've decided to solve that problem by consuming very nearly the entire residential power consumption of Canada, a country of 38 million people. We've done this with a network that…

Bitcoin currently consumes roughly the energy used to power one quarter of CANADA. I'm optimistic that there is a better way to store a ledger as you describe. Perhaps a database?

You don't know how hard it is, as a parent, to make the call to medicate your six year old child. Here are some of the things that went through my own mind: - Maybe he'll outgrow i…

It's not about removing human agency. It's about nudging the aggregate views of a whole population, ever so slightly. Determine what works, reinforce that, repeat algorithmically. …

https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/976783608219279360 He goes on to defend his work at Google, arguing that they're similar on the surface, but Facebook is truly dangerous where G…

> However, don't forget that when a baby is left unsupervised and is submerged in a pool for 15 minutes, it's called neglect. Whoa there, slow down. Kids are quick. One moment, you…

We removed the youtube app from our iPad, because our 4 year old was starting to get too deep into these. There's a lot of great stuff on Youtube for kids (genuinely, whole-hearted…

You may be right. However, the Volt is basically just a hybrid with a bigger battery. By 2011, hybrids were pretty common, so being nervous about the tech wasn't as much of an issu…

This is a big deal. Car of the year, when you're talking about normal internal combustion cars, doesn't really matter that much. When you start talking about new (and, for $30000, …

I'm so not surprised by the comments here, so far. The core points here are good ones: - In a fundamentally emotional argument, you 'win' with empathy, not by beating people over t…

You'd be surprised. This is in Canada, not sure about the US. Deaths per 100,000 people (drowning), Canada, 2006-2010: 0-4: 1.1 5-12: 0.6 13-17: 0.9 18-24: 2.2 24-34: 1.6 34-49: 1.…

The problem with against-the-flow is that it's unexpected to cars that are making a right turn. The other day, I was coming out of an alley, turning right on to a one way street. I…

I actually do. I'm arguing a lot in this thread, but I stopped watching game of thrones around season three. I maybe pirate a movie every 8 or 10 weeks or something? I have young k…

Yeah, I totally get that. And there's definitely a part of me that is biased to "free is better than not-free," so for sure, that's a part of my decision-making process. But unless…

And one last thing: It is actually quite insulting to be reduced down to 'free is better than having to shell out money'. No, it's not. I buy books (audible.com is amazing), I buy …

I'm not trying to help HBO at all. Seriously, not. Couldn't care less about HBO. And you're right, I don't want to pay for it, not when it's priced like that and the distribution m…

It's not oppression, you're right. It's way, way smaller than that. My little act of 'defiance' is way smaller than it would be if it were exactly oppression, too. I'm pirating con…

Laws aren't all equal. Stealing a car is zero-sum: if I take your car, you no longer have a car , which is a very, very expensive toy. If I download Game of Thrones, the outcome fo…

You've decided that, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to pirate content. (Or, perhaps more generally, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to break the law) That's …

I consider piracy to be a form of protest. I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. (I have a Rdio account that's been active for years now - I can't remember the las…