Questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Questions

#421

Post by meowface » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:46 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #392

foepys wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe to have read somewhere that this is also the reason why so many Russians (and people born in the USSR) are great mathematicians and chess players. Math and Chess are both indoor activities and also absolutely unpolitical, which is a huge plus in an authoritarian regime.

>>Math and Chess are both indoor activities and also absolutely unpolitical, which is a huge plus in an authoritarian regime. The history of chess is definitely very political, especially inside the Soviet Union. It was seen as the proxy for intelligence, and if Soviet players were better than Americans, it was their way of demonstrating superiority in yet another domain.

True, but ultra-authoritarian regimes will politicize almost everything imaginable.

Re: Questions

#422

Post by _emacsomancer_ » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 4:01 AM UTC

jnbiche wrote: post #349

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really no different from the observation that Kenyans and Ethiopians win most marathons. But don't most Kenyan and Ethiopian marathon winners also grow up in Kenya or Ethiopia? I.e. how do we discount at very least environmental factors (including, for instance, diet), even if you doubt cultural ones?

> But don't most Kenyan and Ethiopian marathon winners also grow up in Kenya or Ethiopia? No. There is a hugely disproportionate number of Americans and British of Somali, Kenyan, and Ethiopian origin who excel in world class distance running (Adbirahman, Farah, and many more, including a big new wave of Somali American after).

Interesting. That still wouldn't completely rule out environmental/cultural factors though, including diet and so on (e.g. maybe eating teff is good for long-distance runners).

Re: Questions

#423

Post by ericd » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 4:04 AM UTC

sooheon wrote: post #316

JauntTrooper wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is rational. We should live in a society where the expected human sacrifice of a construction project should be 0. Pure utilitarianism leads to outcomes that are clearly out of step with almost everyone's moral codes. For example you could kill someone and take their organs to save the lives of 4-5 people. Is it rational that we're not allowed to do that? Why do some people get to keep 2 kidneys when there ar…

Your "pure utilitarianism" is a complete straw man. Killing someone to take their organs to save 5 lives is utilitarianism to only first order effects. We live in a world that does not terminate after one time step, so we have to consider Nth order effects to calculate utility. For example, the second order effect is other humans' moral judgements. "How horrible, he murdered that man" is a valid moral reaction to hav…

Great comment, I've never had a good way of putting that same thought.

Re: Questions

#424

Post by qwerty456127 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 4:14 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #415

qwerty456127 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem of Visual Studio is that it doesn't work on free operating systems.

No. I mean, this might be a problem for some people, that it doesn’t work on OS X (not free) is a problem for me. But a bigger problem is that even on Windows its more advanced features are often too hard to be usable except for very special situations.

Well, I have narrowed the statement to be about free OSes because there is a version of VisualStudio for MacOS as far as I've heard and because whatever works on Linux/FreeBSD usually works on MacOS too. I mean it should be cross-platform in the way VSCode is.

I don't use Linux for ideological reasons, I use it because it works a lot faster (especially when using PyCharm - the difference is drastic) and more reliable than Windows and gives me "almost-MacOS-and-much-more" experience on my PC.

Modern apps targeting professionals and enthusiasts should be cross-platform (run on Windows, Linux and MacOS) and not force you to choose from just one or two major OSes.

Re: Questions

#425

Post by rahimnathwani » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 4:46 AM UTC

singularity2001 wrote: post #303

mikekchar wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to believe in some of Stephen Krashen's notions of language acquisition. Specifically that there is a difference between learning (being able to remember and repeat something) and acquisition (being able to use it fluently). Also that acquisition comes from comprehension. I also believe that language acquisition is no different than any the acquisition of any other skill. Many people don't agree with these ide…

> 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.

I find it hard to maintain motivation and attention if I'm not getting at least ~30%. This applies to both movies and real-life conversations in another language. And, now I think about it, it also applies to English-language materials that require specific technical background, e.g. academic papers.

Re: Questions

#426

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 4:59 AM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #424

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I mean, this might be a problem for some people, that it doesn’t work on OS X (not free) is a problem for me. But a bigger problem is that even on Windows its more advanced features are often too hard to be usable except for very special situations.

Well, I have narrowed the statement to be about free OSes because there is a version of VisualStudio for MacOS as far as I've heard and because whatever works on Linux/FreeBSD usually works on MacOS too. I mean it should be cross-platform in the way VSCode is. I don't use Linux for ideological reasons, I use it because it works a lot faster (especially when using PyCharm - the difference is drastic) and more reliable…

The version for OS X is just a rebranded Xamarin Studio, nothing like the real visual studio at all. I’m surprised the former doesn’t run under Linux already, there is no good reason it couldn’t.

For the real professional apps, the app is more important than the OS, so you choose whatever OS will run your app. Need to use Adobe CS, well, OS X or Windows is it, it could have been Linux and graphic artists would just swallow and use it, since they need to use CS. Likewise, a tool targeted at Windows app development would be fairly weird running on non-Windows.

Re: Questions

#427

Post by rahimnathwani » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 5:00 AM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #194

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…

This isn't for everybody, but I would say Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), where words are sequentially presented in place to the reader, which has significantly changed the way I read. I wrote my own implementation of RSVP, which has eBook reader support, and now it is absolutely my preferred method of reading, and I read at 1000WPM. Though normal books are still enjoyable, they feel tedious and slow. The pr…

This is really awesome. I think I played with your source a few years ago, trying to adapt it to work with Google Cardboard. My initial attempt failed, because my eyes would lose focus during each word transition. I decided I'd need to add a lightly textured background, which would be shown all the time, and which would fix the distance my eyes were focusing, and then lay the text on top of that. IIRC I gave up because I realised the 'right' way to do this was to use the Cardboard SDK, but that would mean also writing something to render the text into pixels (as the SDK only supported graphics).

BTW - The Google Play link in the repo doesn't work for me, and I don't see Glance in F-Droid. What's the easiest way for non-developers to get the APK?

Re: Questions

#428

Post by qwerty456127 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 5:04 AM UTC

> What's the successor to the scientific paper and the scientific journal?

Why not just a kind of an article-centric social network where scientists would publish their articles and reference other articles, other scientists (and whoever who has found an article relevant to their practice or research) would write their comments, score the articles by various subjective parameters and mark experiments they have managed or failed to replicate? Of course, there is to be moderation to fight junk comments and a way to weight the things that affect the ratings by the reputation of who contributes these.

If I were a scientist I would rather publish my research on my own blog if this didn't mean almost nobody is going to find it and take it seriously. Back in the days, there were no blogs people all over the world could view and that's why we needed journals. I believe journals would not even emerge otherwise. If the Internet was somehow available since the earliest days scientists would probably just upload their works there and care no more (but to receive feedback perhaps).

Re: Questions

#429

Post by humanrebar » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 5:36 AM UTC

evgen wrote: post #119

ddevault wrote: post #90

>Why do there seem to be more examples of rapidly-completed major projects in the past than the present? I'm no historian so this is probably misguided, but I feel like this is an indicator for a society on the decline. Corruption is increasingly rampant in both the public and private sectors, and money is being siphoned off at every step. If we don't figure out how to fix it, mounting costs and inefficiencies could…

> Corruption is increasingly rampant in both the public and private sectors, and money is being siphoned off at every step. This is utter bullshit when it comes to the sort of major public infrastructure projects hinted at in the original post. In fact, what slows things down significantly is the fact that there are so many controls in place to reduce and eliminate this corruption. Contracts that could have been sett…

"Corruption" is word with multiple definitions. It can mean underhanded. In that case it's a sort of shorthand for "moral corruption". It indicates the person or system is far from a moral ideal.

But, generally speaking, corruption can just indicate something that has deviated from its original use. A corrupted file on a computer does not meet its intended purpose, at least not fully. A corrupt organization, likewise, could be 100% honest in all its dealings (1) and fail to meet its intended purpose.

If government agencies partnering with private contractors cannot reasonably build the project all of them exist to build, then there is some sort of corruption going on. It's possible there is graft or underhandedness, but it's also possible that there is emergent dysfunction inhibiting their ability to execute. That is also corruption.

(1) That is, the organization is not morally or ethically corrupt.

Re: Questions

#430

Post by Munksgaard » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 5:45 AM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #194

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…

This isn't for everybody, but I would say Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), where words are sequentially presented in place to the reader, which has significantly changed the way I read. I wrote my own implementation of RSVP, which has eBook reader support, and now it is absolutely my preferred method of reading, and I read at 1000WPM. Though normal books are still enjoyable, they feel tedious and slow. The pr…

I can't seem to find your app on the Android store, even through the link on your GitHub page. Are you sure it's working?