Viewing profile — hugh_

Heck, you're right, I should!

Not really, it's just damn near impossible to buy anything that isn't made in China or some other crappy dictatorship.

I don't have time to spend a lovely Saturday morning watching a 90-minute video just to criticize it, but how can one "debunk" the calories-in calories-out model? Surely this is ju…

Y'see, this is why I don't like the fact that comments can no longer go below -4.

Yep, I got my first bike for my sixth birthday and never had training wheels. What's the point of giving a four-year-old a bike anyway? It's not like you're going to let 'em ride i…

Let's assume that the fraction of people in prison has grown over the last 70 years. This is either because sentencing has got harsher or because people are committing more crimes.…

What cars do pilots drive? What foods do vintners eat? I'd say it's more like asking "What cars do park rangers drive?" or "What foods do wrestlers eat?" because we're talking abou…

Are the folks in prison really the same folks who would otherwise be attending the University of California? I think they're generally pretty different demographics. Better K-6 edu…

One of my favourite theories on prison reform: a huge problem with prisons is the formation of gangs and other social structures within the prison walls; not only do these promote …

Sounds like what we really need to do is outsource the prisons. To, say, Mexico, or China. I'll bet the Chinese don't pay $50,000 per prisoner per year to keep their prisoners lock…

But the robot _might_ be being controlled by some guy in another room who is also controlling the lightbulb (alternatively the person could be following instructions given by an ea…

E.g., are we right to assume that all the laws of chemistry are "in principle" reducible to physics, even though we can never hope to make such a reduction in practice? Actually, m…

It's actually shocking how little reason there is to believe in a single set of underlying natural laws when you consider these issues with an open mind. What's the alternative to …

In this case we can be reasonably confident in the causal link between the switch and the light because we're controlling the switch ourselves -- this helps us eliminate the other …

The horizontal axis represents musical time, from the beginning to the end of the piece, while the vertical axis shows how far the similarities persist into the higher-level struct…

I reckon that the best way to become a generalist is a two-step process: 1. Become a specialist 2. Become a generalist This has two advantages. Firstly, you'll be useful and employ…

Really? Wow. And people are complaining that the crash was caused by under -regulation? How about first removing all the laws which force banks to lend money to folks who are unwor…

Even if we did develop a lie detector with high accuracy, how would we know? There's good reason to believe that lie detectors might work much better in the laboratory, on test sub…

The article says that fears of damage to your credit rating, if you do this, are "overblown". But surely the damage to your credit rating among rational creditors should be really …

It's largely economics of scale. The linked post says that New York State is spending vast sums of money just to house twelve inmates on death row, so obviously it would be cheaper…

Without any suggested strategy that would defend against all possible attacks, though, it's not much of a suggestion. The current strategy may be the best one available. If unrelia…

I have adopted a "we are homosapien" (note: not plural) outlook towards the humanities While I have no idea what that means, I would like to point out that "homo sapien" is not the…

Does he consider Blink 182 to be more "mainstream" than Vampire Weekend?

They're still a helluva lot more expensive than coal-powered plants, which is what the third world is actually building.

Except Iran isn't a sovereign nation, it's just a patch of soil run, in practice, by a bunch of unelected mullah-thugs. The doctrine of sovereign rights should be restricted to dem…