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patrickcollison.com

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Re: Questions

#351

Post by NateEag »

panic wrote: post #8

> What's the successor to the book? And how could books be improved? > Books are great (unless you're Socrates). We now have magic ink. As an artifact for effecting the transmission of knowledge (rather than a source of entertainment), how can the book be improved? How can we help authors understand how well their work is doing in practice? (Which parts are readers confused by or stumbling over or skipping?) How can…

I have thought about the difficulties of long-term storage for a while, and have come to the conclusion that digital mediums are inherently a poor choice for archiving and preserving data:

http://howicode.nateeag.com/data-preservation.html

As one of the more recent additions to that essay shows, I'm not the only one with that opinion:

https://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/millennium/m6/...

As I note in the essay, there are some technologies that work better than others for preservation, but digital's biggest weaknesses are inherent, I think.

Re: Questions

#352

Post by travisjungroth »

____a wrote: post #331
tzs wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death rates are probably better than absolute number of deaths for comparison. Here are death rates per 1000 workers of some well known construction projects: 80 Transcontinental Railroad 80 Suez Canal 50 Brooklyn Bridge 17.46 World Trade Center 6.4 Sydney Harbor Bridge 4.47 Hoover Dam 3.37 San Francisco Bay Bridge 3.33 Eiffel Tower 2.67 Titanic 2.5 Sears Tower 1.47 Empire State Building 1.17 Trans-Alaska Pipeline Sy…

Are you on mobile? Or something else might be breaking formatting for you. The chart linked does have numbers for the Panama Canal (408.12) and Burma-Siam Railway (385.45).

40% of workers died building the Panama Canal? That's nuts.

Re: Questions

#353

Post by philwelch »

sakoht wrote: post #147

"Why are certain things getting so much more expensive?" Because we are lying about inflation. It's not a conspiracy, just a mutually agreed-to delusion. By pretending inflation is lower than it is, the poor feel like they are standing still instead of sinking ...though instinctively they know. And the people just keeping up get to feel richer. Since technology and efficiency improve, the people staying in the same p…

So why are other things not getting much more expensive? Why are things not getting more expensive at the same rate? Monetary inflation affects all goods more or less uniformly, but the price of milk hasn't skyrocketed as much as the cost of education or housing or healthcare.

Re: Questions

#354

Post by qaq »

posterboy wrote: post #311
qaq wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will sound horrible but is it rational? E.g. say you are building a huge hospital and due to the above it will take 4 years longer at 2x the cost so basically you could loose X lives due to hospital not being there and due to increased cost of care.

Yes, it does sound horrible. Not because of the objective, but it is so uninformed and low effort that it is really pain full. Yes, it's a great idea. Killing one person will allow us to double speed. How exactly I wonder, but this seems like the kind of project where asking questions is strictly forbidden.

This has nothing to do with specifically killing people but has to do with creating regulatory environment were very few entities can complete and comply with regulation. I am not sure anyone can contribute the improved stats to that burdensome regulation easily as it can be just general tech and process improvements.

Re: Questions

#355

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mhjas wrote: post #207
throwawaybbqed wrote: post #87

Regarding the question of education/college costs rising drastically, I thought a key answer was that govt started to fund education a whole ton less. In Canada (where this has not happened as badly), an undergrad in CS used to cost 3K annually a decade and a half ago, and costs 10K now. Other disciplines cost 6K I think .. CS degrees cost more since colleges decided that students earn a lot more and there is huge de…

To some extent I think people just underestimate what education costs. Sweden pays ~€40k to educate an engineer (5 year, B.Sc + M.Sc). On top of that there is another ~€20k in student benefits to the student and ~€40k in a government backed student loan (for books and living costs).

As a comparison, in the UK we spend about £6k per high-school aged child/youth/young adult (11-18) on schooling. In London state schools get about £8k, the highest £8.5 (~€46k over 5 years).

So it's relatively not so much to be within €8k per year for degree level study.

We do have 4 year MEng-s though (same length as many MPhys, MChem, MSc).

1GBP is about 1.1EUR currently (!).

Re: Questions

#356

Post by cambaceres »

chucky wrote: post #35

> Why are there so many successful startups in Stockholm? Several reasons. First, you need to recognize that any Sweden-based startup will, when it gets to be known internationally, have a Stockholm-based office. So it's not about a city of 1 million inhabitants, it's a country of 10 million that's the true number here. As an example, I believe Spotify opened their original offices in both Stockholm and Göteborg more…

One other reason is that taxation of income gets extremly high (60 %) when the salary rises above ~$7000/month. This makes people feel that it is impossible to get rich by working for someone else in Sweden, which in turn pushes productive people into startups.

Re: Questions

#357

Post by briandear »

pchristensen wrote: post #327
singularity2001 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes 95% comprehension of the text in order to acquire new grammar and vocabulary strongly disagree. learning chinese by youtube. I comprehend 15% but I pick up new patterns and words all the time.

Any good sources you recommend for learning Chinese on YouTube? I’m just getting started with HelloChinese and Fluent Forever - watching video seems too deep for now.

Not YouTube, but Chinese Pod is really great.

Re: Questions

#358

Post by ttty »

carapace wrote: post #330
raldi wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe we should make the national speed limit 25? If not, you're accepting that people will die needlessly, and that the value of a human life is not, in fact, infinite.

FWIW, I would [make the national speed limit 25] if I could. (With some hopefully obvious qualifications.) The current traffic system as an insane "death and mayhem lottery" that we force ourselves to play, with out respect of youth, age or anything. The current interest and action towards bike-friendly cities is a symptom, I think, of a healing of societies' psyches. We have been pretty brutal to each other since th…

Ok, so from 50 to 25 will reduce some deaths. That's right. But now we can reduce to 20, will reduce even more deaths. Then 15, 10... Where do we stop?

Re: Questions

#359

Post by briandear »

sakoht wrote: post #147

"Why are certain things getting so much more expensive?" Because we are lying about inflation. It's not a conspiracy, just a mutually agreed-to delusion. By pretending inflation is lower than it is, the poor feel like they are standing still instead of sinking ...though instinctively they know. And the people just keeping up get to feel richer. Since technology and efficiency improve, the people staying in the same p…

Do taxes matter? Indentical products in the US and France feature French prices that are far more expensive, even when adjusting for currency. Milk, for example. iPhones. Clothing especially. Washing machines, furniture.

Disposable income in France is vastly lower than that of the US. Is that inflation? Or tax policy?

Re: Questions

#360

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

almost_usual wrote: post #266
iamwil wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then if that's true, you wouldn't get lots of devs in the Bay Area California. Lots of great weather here.

How many devs have you met that grew up in the Bay Area?

I know a handful. Is it really surprising?
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