Viewing profile — colah

Honestly, I'm beginning to wonder if it is actually an experiment in the extent to which the scientific community will accept or at least consider ludicrous claims because they com…

I've actually switched from reading HN to mostly reading Reddit. The level of discourse increases quite a bit in subreddits, and you can usually find good discussions on even obscu…

I think it really depends on the subreddit. Once you start getting into speciality subreddits, the level of the discourse increases.

Speaking in your head is called subvocalization ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization ) and many forms of speed reading get the learner to eliminate it. Subvocalization ha…

Also, by forcing people to invest time like this, they build customer loyalty. The customers don't want to admit that they were wrong. On the other hand, this could backfire if som…

But its not just the size of the market... Windows machines are more likely to come into contact with another windows machine than macs are to come in contact with other macs. Thus…

I'm not sure the three wishes chosen are the best possible. Obviously, ``Five more wishes, please.'' Would be nice, but the Jinn obviously would have refused. Something that would …

_We_ might ourselves be a resources. A novel life form.

And the result is that a lot of experts go and make their own wikis, because they can't merge their content into Wikipedia. Which kind of defeats the whole centralisation advantage…

Interesting. You're the second recommendation I've been given for Munkres. This list of recommended books in topology: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/Other/topologybooks.pdf …

Er... What!?! > Why doesn't the square on the hypotenuse just slide off? This is nonsensical to me. Could you please elaborate? You seem to be asking why an idea isn't effected by …

I read it as a sort of parody. The point of the article wasn't to sell the video but to demonstrate how to sell the video. It's a lesson on advertising in the form of an add. Very …

You know, I'd like to not block adds. I really don't want to. But some sites make me. I didn't block them until a few months a go. But there were some adds that were just so obnoxi…

> 400 years of brutal slavery and genocide inflicted on an entire race of God's chosen people? You make it sound like the `God's chosen people' part is relevant to the moral discus…

Thanks! It's hard to ask for evidence in advance (and probably mildly contrary to the scientific spirit :) ), but at the very least it will have to explain lots of seemingly contra…

Well, we're actually in a discussion of the magnitude of its effect at this point... (Which could lead to the discussion of whether there could be multiple causes for climate chang…

Let me preface my answer with asking you a question. You see, you seem to have very similar beliefs to those I did a few years ago. My beliefs started changing once I asked myself …

I can't say I've read all (or even most!) of the articles posted on HN about this topic, the ones that I have haven't been climate `denialism' but rather scepticism and more specif…

She won't make a full recovery, but we can still help her. And I think we have a moral obligation to try. It wouldn't surprise me if she _is_ suicidal right now.

>Wow, I strongly disagree. Our approaches diverge on virtually every case, as far as I can tell. That was a poor wording on my part. Make that where they diverge most strongly. >My…

> Even basic logic would tell you "God Exists" does not lead to "Therefore, God does not exist." in the same argument. Incorrect. A common form argument is: suppose a leads to not …

Because edge cases and extreme cases often reveal the difference between approaches/strategies/philosophies/ideologies/etc. Our approaches lead us to different conclusions in this …

> >That's the moral case; note what I said in the parent comment about the practicality of capital punishment. All I can say is that I'm ideologically opposed to this. Most people …