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6,405karma·1,004submissions·November 20, 2012
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Darren Stone, Vancouver, BC, Canada
"Once men turned their thinking over to
machines in the hope that this would
set them free. But that only permitted
other men with machines to enslave
them." - Frank P. Herbert, Jr., 1965
"The programmer, like the poet, works
only slightly removed from pure
thought-stuff. He builds his castles
in the air, from air, creating by
exertion of the imagination."
- Fred P. Brooks, Jr., 1975recent activity (1,004 total)
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Can we get a "(1999)" date on this, please? Only half joking becuase I see Common Lisp and, sure, I upvote ... but honestly, what's the purpose of this HN submission without context? SB…
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> It's like an honor-based culture at scale. Except the basis of that culture would not be honour, would it? A critical mass of people scrutinizing and reporting others' actions might lea…
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Yup. Any LLM recommendation for a product or service should be viewed with suspicion (no different than web search results or asking a commission-based human their opinion). Sponsored placements. Affi…
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I'll just throw some more ES5503 DOC love here. It's also the audio chip in the Apple IIGS. In 1986, having a stock home computer playing 32 simultaneous hardware voices (without software mi…
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Solid reason, thank you. Yes, Lisp 1 for the win in many cases. Now... there's also the wonderful Fennel possibility which distracts me when I'm bikeshedding. ;-)
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I'm grateful for the author's "other options that were considered" section with eight alternatives to S7. But Embeddable Common Lisp (ECL) is the only one listed that he doesn'…
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See I can understand this. e.g. a family asset for children, a property to build a retirement home on, a hunting property, or simply a real investment.
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1. Author lost me at his first sentence: "Like most people, I’ve had my identity stolen once or twice in my life." I am careful and aware of this possibility, but AFAIK I have not experience…
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Yes, that is the specific deterrence effect. The general deterrence effect we observe in society is that punishment of one person has an effect on others who observe it, making them more cautious and …
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I see. Thank you for sharing. Insurance here is mandatory here for all motorists. If you are hit by an underinsured driver, the government steps in and additional underinsured motorist protection (e.g…
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Waymo hits you -> you seek relief from Waymo's insurance company. Waymo's insurance premium go up. Waymo can weather a LOT of that. Business is still good. Thus, poor financial feedback…
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I had to read what Berners-Lee's solution "Solid Protocol" was all about. https://solidproject.org/ "Solid is a file system for the Web ... Solid lets you put docu…
24 pts
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Lol, I see the image fine but if I click the red "Buy Now" button, I get a 404. Fortunately, I type this, sitting in my wonderful 15 year old Embody chair so I don't actually need to bu…
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These statements are pretty well supported. Re/ deporting 100 million Americans: The actual number would be 53 million and I'll explain. The USA Department of Homeland Security made an offic…
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http://archive.today/2026.01.15-151504/https://www.economist... …
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Thanks for the links but can you share evidence for the "public IP address" claim? Each time I've read this concept (intriguing! possible!), I search for evidence and I can't find …
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Thank you for this really thoughtful answer. I'm going to keep using Seek because, as you say, it's streamlined for those of us who want to help researchers with data but also just want a si…
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Yes, he does. And I will. But he also suggests that users organize and that cessation of data or money or "withdrawing your data would be a reasonable form of protest".
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And before the wrong Scala crowd gets too excited, the Scala referred to is the musical tuning software from 1985 https://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/ (Not the programming langu…
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Enthusiastic Seek-using family here. It works so well for our very simple needs that I admit to never fully looking into iNaturalist's use of data or my ability to export or move my observations …
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Looks promising. Does it support multi-snout gestures and standard boop-boop protocols?
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Maybe what I need is an AI agent to consume AI generated content on my behalf. Then I can continue with my strong preference to direct my time and attention toward content generated, mostly, by my fel…
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> But disconnected events can be seen in different orders depending on speed of observer. What are "disconnected events"? In a subtle but still real sense, are not all events causally lin…
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Wild. My layperson mind goes to a simple example, which may or may not be possible, but please tell me if this is the gist: Alice and Bob, in different reference frames, both witness events C and D oc…
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Normally I would nod at the title. Having lived it. But I just watched/listened to a Richard Feynmann talk on the nature of time and clocks and the futility of "synchronizing" clocks. S…
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Yes! Linus must really burn himself up, conceiving and executing masterworks like this! But saying "0 regrets" hopefully means he hasn't lost motivation for his next crazy project!
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I really appreciated the explanation of what proteins are, in simple terms. I assume (?) it's accurate enough for a layperson. And I do love the optimism. But then you must admit this reads lik…