thisuser | 14 years ago | on: How can C Programs be so Reliable?
Dereferencing a pointer to 0 seemed to work fine?
thisuser's comments
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: White House proposes crowdfunding exemption
Because it is lip service only. This plan will be muddled by congress as to benefit primarily the large institutions that are their donors, rather than the intended swath of USians. When that happens, don't expect Obama to be outraged. The exact same thing happened with health care, tax rates, debt cap, etc.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Amazon Offers To Hire 7,000 If California Waits On Sales Tax
Exactly. Texas called Amazon's bluff. Amazon folded.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}
Medical and voting records generally ask for sex, not gender. It would be nice if the two concepts would stop being confused.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: The economics of good looks
How well does IQ correlate with intelligence?
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
Am I the only one yearning for the convex optimization I & II classes to be offered in the new style?
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: what are some good resources to understand economics?
I wish this distinction was so hard and true. It has unfortunately been my experience that to address the assumptions of most economic thinkers, political engagement is required. Bringing up heterodox or marxist _economic_ arguments tends to be met with political resistance. I will redouble my efforts to keep the distinction alive.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: what are some good resources to understand economics?
Where's the difference?
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: what are some good resources to understand economics?
Oh Graeber's book is out! Lovely! I have been passing around his essay by the same name for some time now. Should be a good intro to the book http://blog.longnow.org/2010/04/22/debt-the-first-five-thous...
I would also recommend anything by David Harvey. Start out with this animated version of one of his talks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 Then move on to his Capital vol. 1 lecture series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBazR59SZXk There is also a book format of his reading guide
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future
There is no evidence that lowering tax rates creates jobs.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: I am an HFT Programmer
Capital Vol. 1 by Marx is classic and still more applicable than anyone wants to admit. Ease into the terminology over the first few chapters, things are defined carefully.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’
You would think that at least a few of these Laureates would entertain the possibility that under the right conditions a community of technocratic professionals freely debating the merits of various policies could have a better answer than any single individual picked by a committee of Norwegians. It's almost like this is a free market of ideas, and you being downvoted is an invisible hand telling you to have better ideas if you want to make it.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’
I have serious problems with the policies that CATO advocates. I expect them to explain and justify their policies, not appeal to a committee of Norwegians for authority. I expect the same of you.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’
Allowed by the commenting community.
There's a difference between simple and simplistic. Simplistic is pretending the only incentive force at work in a national scale institution is the profit incentive.
Simple is acknowledging that a small institution with the mission statement to advocate for profit incentive as the singular organizing principle of our economy probably believes in its mission statement and operates for the purpose of the private profit of its owners.
I've seen a few _interesting_ notes from CATO, but nothing I would call subtle or anything but free market fundamentalism. They tend to pick up every single news story and view it through a free market, shrink govt, give an individual the profit lens. Which is why they can only write a short, generic paragraph of comment on an interesting story about Khan Academy. OP should have been a link to Wired.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’
Everything is politics. But reactionary free-market worship is too simplistic to be allowed here. Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable, not because they have any insightful analysis.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Mork keeps on giving: When the database worms eat into your murder trial
Unfortunately law seems to be one of the most conservative institutions (i.e. slow to change) in existence. It it set up to be an adversarial system between two parties, and most of the institutional structure depends upon that. Between the desire for an adversarial system and constitutional right to trial by jury, I'm not sure how you can really move away from my expert witness vs your expert witness when examining evidence for a jury. Any ideas? A "technical judge" that adjudicates evidence into more explainable forms to be explained to the jury?
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs
Oh well we can't be upsetting the government. Carry on.
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: Aaronsw indicted for hacking MIT network to download millions of JSTOR docs
He is accused of stealing bandwidth from JSTOR, not the documents. "Theft of services" not theft of property. Theft of bandwidth is almost as absurd as theft via copying. JSTOR apparently isn't interested in free transmission of knowledge
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
There's also no evidence that keeping taxes low (the opportunity cost) creates jobs. Just look at our employment performance over the last decade
thisuser | 14 years ago | on: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
Agreed. Lets also make sure that these new businesses stay employee owned. If newly created small businesses find success -- only to be bought out by the paragons of the current economic model -- we will end up cycling back into the same negative externalities of the current economic model. If they are bought out we will be back to the same unemployment level, with more public debt that was transferred to the largest corporations and their shareholders.
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