Questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Questions

#441

Post by stef25 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 9:01 AM UTC

jim777 wrote: post #237

notdang wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and possibly higher intelligence Interesting what would happen if this is said about any other country

It's not about nationality: Ashkenazi Jews in general -- Israeli or not -- tend to be smarter. ~20% of Nobel prize winners are Jews compared to less than 1% of the global population. So either there's a Jewish conspiracy (which some people believe...) or Jews tend to be smarter. Some people would say that this is cultural. I doubt it -- I think it's genetic. Intelligence is a physical attribute determined by genes, j…

I guess you've heard of The Bell Curve and the related controversy (check Sam Harris podcast with Charles Murray)?

Fwiw I don't think you're necessarily wrong about intelligence but from what I remember The Gene (Siddhartha Mukherjee) does have a few passages contradicting this theory. Also by questioning the validity of IQ tests.

Could it also not be that jews are just more motivated to get in to STEM fields and perform well, for cultural reasons or otherwise?

Similarly, Malcolm Gladwell mentions a theory about why "Asians are smarter" which according to him may be related to hard and smart work leading to bigger rice harvests, and other factors (see here https://www.cs.unh.edu/~sbhatia/outliers/outliers.pdf).

While I have zero interest in the cultural implications and all the moral panics surrounding these issues, I don't think intelligence being mostly down to genetics is a proven fact. I find it gets extremely complicated very quickly.

Genes are hugely influenced by their environmental (cultural) triggers and those should not be ignored.

Re: Questions

#442

Post by megablast » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 9:46 AM UTC

trimbo wrote: post #191

> The Empire State Building was built in 410 days At least one reason is that we have substantially different safety regulations since we're not accepting of deaths on a project like that. 5 people died on that project. 11 died to build the Golden Gate. Original Bay Bridge? 24. They actually had a rule of thumb at the time: 1 death for every $1M spent on a project[1]. Any metric like that would be absolutely unaccept…

> Any metric like that would be absolutely unacceptable today.

Except for car deaths. Over one million a year seems to be acceptable.

Re: Questions

#443

Post by almostarockstar » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 10:06 AM UTC

Munksgaard wrote: post #430

Mizza wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Also, the website linked in the repo seems to be down.

Re: Questions

#444

Post by qwerty456127 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 10:09 AM UTC

> And part of the problem is, of course, that writing a good post is much harder than writing a witty tweet.

As is reading it when "a good post" implies a long post. Authors should better realize brevity is a merit and learn to organize the information they seek to share in more concise pieces easier to digest. If encounter a post that seems interesting and fits on one page I will surely read it. If it's about 1.5 screens-long I may read it. If it's more than 2-screens long I will only read it if I believe it is probably going to change my life. And my screen height is just 900 pixels.

Re: Questions

#445

Post by tomhoward » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 10:24 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #438

tomhoward wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, Patrick and Sam are friends. You don’t think they’re discussing these and other hard questions socially? Also, Sam founded YC Research and donated $10M of his own money into it to find answers to hard questions about AI, UBI, medicine/health and other big challenges. He also toured the country interviewing Trump voters to find answers to questions about what was underlying the political climate th…

I read Sams posts whenever they come out and they strike me as someone who has good intentions, little experience and who believes that they are able to see what is good for the world. I read Patricks writings as someone who is genuinely curious about the world and who by thinking about problems reaches points where he does not have all the answers but is able to at least phrase the problems coherently enough that fu…

It's a valid assessment, thanks for sharing it.

Re: Questions

#446

Post by jstimpfle » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 10:40 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #373

uxp wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no technical limitation why it is impossible in C, however the raw details of how C is implemented make it entirely impractical. A super generalized description of a C function might check if a register contains a positive value. If so, it will then jump to address 0x42, which is a memory offset, which is the beginning of another function. Its near impossible to "swap" out what lies at 0x42 since that was de…

> There is no technical limitation why it is impossible in C, Yes, there is. You can't trace the stack in portable C, so you can't build a proper garbage collector.

Debugging a function and GC are independent things. Also, you can easily add tracing information since you will know how the C code is being run. There is no good reason not to.

There are easy ways to build a GC in portable C as well, of course, if less performant.

As you will know, in portable C you cannot even implement a system call. So what?

Re: Questions

#447

Post by gahikr » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 10:47 AM UTC

mariushn wrote: post #369

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…

I have a different take. Healthcare, education, construction costs are all regulated by governments. Unlike companies, governments are systems of people who thrive from complexity. More complexity = more work, more power, more benefits (direct on indirect). To give you an example from construction, a company producing a complex part is "giving away" 3 day training in fancy locations, with all hotel & meals paid by th…

From a US perspective, these are all markets that depend on expensive skilled US labor. Many things like manufacturing have shifted to labor markets that are cheaper. How much is due to currency differences, cost of living differences, etc. vs. employee safety or anti-pollution regulations ... I don’t know.

Re: Questions

#448

Post by lisper » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 12:14 PM UTC

jstimpfle wrote: post #446

lisper wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no technical limitation why it is impossible in C, Yes, there is. You can't trace the stack in portable C, so you can't build a proper garbage collector.

Debugging a function and GC are independent things. Also, you can easily add tracing information since you will know how the C code is being run. There is no good reason not to. There are easy ways to build a GC in portable C as well, of course, if less performant. As you will know, in portable C you cannot even implement a system call. So what?

> Debugging a function and GC are independent things.

Yes, but redefining a function and GC are not.

> There are easy ways to build a GC in portable C as well, of course, if less performant.

No, because you can't walk the stack. Also pointer aliasing.

[UPDATE] I just realized that I was wrong about redefining functions in C. Not only is it possible, you can actually do it with currently available technology using dynamically linked libraries. But I have never seen anyone actually do this (which is why it didn't occur to me).

Re: Questions

#449

Post by fuzzfactor » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 12:41 PM UTC

aglionby wrote: post #284

scandox wrote: post #49

> It seems that the returns to entrepreneurialism in cities remain high: Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and others, have improved the lives of millions of people and appear much more contingent than inevitable. I’m interested in this as a bald assertion. Have they improved the lives of millions of people? I wasn’t aware of that. Can someone give me a quick before and after?

I was also curious about this. There are high levels of disparity in all three of those places. Hong Kong has both some of the most expensive property in the world and people living in cage homes.

Experimental Cities

These are like experimental schools.

Not intended to be mainstream at all.

Admission criteria would seem to be a critical consideration and the further from the mainstream that the experiments extend, the more unlikely it would be expected to be scalable beyond very strict criteria.

Houston comes to mind as a purpose-built city founded on undeveloped land for the primary purpose of entrepreneurship which has grown larger than average by maintaining that approach more so than average. As an example there has never been a zoning ordinance, that kind of regulatory obstacle would be seen as an experiment in cutailing prosperity, certainly not normal. A failed experiment at that after observation of long-term effects in other municipalities. Even though in most other municipalities the removal of zoning would be thought of as an experiment too risky for them to even consider.

In the mature real-world example of Houston it is also painfully obvious the benefit that could have been obtained with a little well-intended admission criteria. Besides, when's the last time you heard someone say "Hey, it's a free country" any more anyway.

> How do we help more experimental cities get started?

You've got to find someone who wants to subdivide their ranch, and then get settlers to move there like anyone else. Incentives might help speed things up, and you've got to figure that the more restrictive the admission criteria, the more people will want to apply.

Or something like that.

Re: Questions

#450

Post by fuzzfactor » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 12:46 PM UTC

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…

>What's the successor to the book?

The second edition.

And how could books be improved?

Until a different unpowered human-readable medium is proven over a longer period of more careless storage conditions, looks like a third edition if appropriate.

If it hasn't been printed it hasn't really been published as thoroughly as it could be, and if it hasn't been bound then it's not yet a real book. Up until recent decades the survival of unique knowledge was largely dependent on the number of copies printed and distributed, so popularity has had undue importance.

But don't let earlier editions become lost or woe on you.