I recently chose a Studio Display over the alternatives, because I wanted something with an integrated camera to use as the primary display. There are already too many devices on my desk, so anything that needs an extra…
The challenge is the initial reduction from an arbitrary problem in NP to the problem you want to prove NP-complete. In the usual approach, you assume a nondeterministic Turing machine (or equivalent) that solves the…
It's been a long time since I seriously thought about complexity theory, but I'd say no. For similar reasons to why complexity class E is not closed under polynomial-time reductions. The most important component in the…
He says he is a Protestant, and he probably identifies as one. He may believe he believes in Jesus Christ, but does he actually believe, or is he just fooling himself? Can you even know if you genuinely believe in…
The entire republican tradition (with a small r) rests on the assumption that leadership is a common skill. The society is supposed to give ambitious young people opportunities to demonstrate their skills, and then…
It seems to me that you are comparing two kinds of business-minded people. Some want to sell tailored products to individual customers, while others want to sell one-size-fits-all products to many customers. You could…
This project has repeatedly appeared in the national news since 2024, when Google first acquired the land. It's the largest investment ever made in Finland (at least by some metrics), so people are obviously paying…
There is usually a standard language people learn at school. It's mostly used as a written language or when you want to sound formal. In more casual situations, people tend to use their favorite dialects. Or maybe an…
European pension systems have multiple components. There is usually a minimum guaranteed pension based on residency alone, which is paid if you don't have enough income from other sources. That can be supplemented by a…
The more famous the problem, the more reputation matters. There is no shortage of papers claiming to prove P vs. NP in either direction. Nobody is taking them seriously, as everyone has a strong prior that people trying…
Grigori Perelman's papers were considered promising mostly because they were written by Perelman. When there are too many papers to read, the reputation of the authors becomes the most important signal of quality.…
America is pretty much the only country with elected prosecutors. Everyone else considers it a career position, and then incentives are different.
If the Ents were real, everyone in Finland would be long dead. That 300 hectares represents about 0.5 days of logging.
Carbon offsets are greenwash. Emissions trading mostly works, because it's just about the government setting a quota and then letting people figure out who gets to use it.
In the same sense as being fit is not really worth anything today. If AI succeeds and the future is good for the average person, education will probably improve your quality of life. Especially because it doesn't have…
The scientific method can be used to falsify hypotheses. It cannot prove that something is true. Fields that use the scientific method typically rely on social consensus for determining the truth. Empirically speaking,…
That's a matter of political culture and state institutions. Finland is largely governed by rewriting laws. Each government coalition has a few focus areas, where they try to do a major rewrite of all relevant laws and…
Conceptually, HOAs seem to be similar to medieval guilds. They are private governments, where voting rights are based on a private right (property ownership) rather than involvement in the area the government controls…
That's pretty stereotypical. In order to be successful, you need to find yourself in places where you can convince others that it's worth giving opportunities to you. Social skills help. Being extroverted helps. Being…
All reasonable high-stakes electoral systems assume that election officials cannot be trusted. There is no central database that can be manipulated. Traditionally there are people representing different parties watching…
Social pressure can make it scale pretty well. For example, there could be a neighborhood election day party. You vote when you enter, the organizers observe how you vote, and then you leave your devices in a storage…
I've seen claims that the median full-time income is ~€4500/month in Germany. That's around $60k/year, or ~$70k/year after adjusting for purchasing power. Which is a bit more than the equivalent figure in the US. Many…
If you go that way, then there is definitely a civilizational split between Protestants and Catholics, as well as between Europe and America. Looking from a Finnish perspective, Sweden and Estonia are culturally closest…
You are confusing mechanisms and statistical outcomes. It's a bit like crowd dynamics. Each individual human is sentient, but if you observe a large enough crowd, there is no sign of sentience in its behavior. People…
I think much of the opposition to data centers is because companies are rushing to build them as quickly as possible. When you are building a traditional factory, you probably expect it to remain operational for 30+…
I recently chose a Studio Display over the alternatives, because I wanted something with an integrated camera to use as the primary display. There are already too many devices on my desk, so anything that needs an extra…
The challenge is the initial reduction from an arbitrary problem in NP to the problem you want to prove NP-complete. In the usual approach, you assume a nondeterministic Turing machine (or equivalent) that solves the…
It's been a long time since I seriously thought about complexity theory, but I'd say no. For similar reasons to why complexity class E is not closed under polynomial-time reductions. The most important component in the…
He says he is a Protestant, and he probably identifies as one. He may believe he believes in Jesus Christ, but does he actually believe, or is he just fooling himself? Can you even know if you genuinely believe in…
The entire republican tradition (with a small r) rests on the assumption that leadership is a common skill. The society is supposed to give ambitious young people opportunities to demonstrate their skills, and then…
It seems to me that you are comparing two kinds of business-minded people. Some want to sell tailored products to individual customers, while others want to sell one-size-fits-all products to many customers. You could…
This project has repeatedly appeared in the national news since 2024, when Google first acquired the land. It's the largest investment ever made in Finland (at least by some metrics), so people are obviously paying…
There is usually a standard language people learn at school. It's mostly used as a written language or when you want to sound formal. In more casual situations, people tend to use their favorite dialects. Or maybe an…
European pension systems have multiple components. There is usually a minimum guaranteed pension based on residency alone, which is paid if you don't have enough income from other sources. That can be supplemented by a…
The more famous the problem, the more reputation matters. There is no shortage of papers claiming to prove P vs. NP in either direction. Nobody is taking them seriously, as everyone has a strong prior that people trying…
Grigori Perelman's papers were considered promising mostly because they were written by Perelman. When there are too many papers to read, the reputation of the authors becomes the most important signal of quality.…
America is pretty much the only country with elected prosecutors. Everyone else considers it a career position, and then incentives are different.
If the Ents were real, everyone in Finland would be long dead. That 300 hectares represents about 0.5 days of logging.
Carbon offsets are greenwash. Emissions trading mostly works, because it's just about the government setting a quota and then letting people figure out who gets to use it.
In the same sense as being fit is not really worth anything today. If AI succeeds and the future is good for the average person, education will probably improve your quality of life. Especially because it doesn't have…
The scientific method can be used to falsify hypotheses. It cannot prove that something is true. Fields that use the scientific method typically rely on social consensus for determining the truth. Empirically speaking,…
That's a matter of political culture and state institutions. Finland is largely governed by rewriting laws. Each government coalition has a few focus areas, where they try to do a major rewrite of all relevant laws and…
Conceptually, HOAs seem to be similar to medieval guilds. They are private governments, where voting rights are based on a private right (property ownership) rather than involvement in the area the government controls…
That's pretty stereotypical. In order to be successful, you need to find yourself in places where you can convince others that it's worth giving opportunities to you. Social skills help. Being extroverted helps. Being…
All reasonable high-stakes electoral systems assume that election officials cannot be trusted. There is no central database that can be manipulated. Traditionally there are people representing different parties watching…
Social pressure can make it scale pretty well. For example, there could be a neighborhood election day party. You vote when you enter, the organizers observe how you vote, and then you leave your devices in a storage…
I've seen claims that the median full-time income is ~€4500/month in Germany. That's around $60k/year, or ~$70k/year after adjusting for purchasing power. Which is a bit more than the equivalent figure in the US. Many…
If you go that way, then there is definitely a civilizational split between Protestants and Catholics, as well as between Europe and America. Looking from a Finnish perspective, Sweden and Estonia are culturally closest…
You are confusing mechanisms and statistical outcomes. It's a bit like crowd dynamics. Each individual human is sentient, but if you observe a large enough crowd, there is no sign of sentience in its behavior. People…
I think much of the opposition to data centers is because companies are rushing to build them as quickly as possible. When you are building a traditional factory, you probably expect it to remain operational for 30+…