There seem to be a lot of defensive comments, which I guess, seem to be coming from the focus on individual guilt. Focussing too much on individual choice is examining a particular solution approach and not the problem…
One important thing to note is that cyclone hit Orissa at low tide. Floods, more than wind speed, seem to be the the important factor. There was flooding some time after Phailin in Andhra Pradesh due to heavy rains and…
Interesting. This is a very detailed effort, with encyclopaedic ambitions across different languages. The question is if there is a lightweight version of this - someway of chosing a reasonably small set of phonemes…
Maybe, we should have an international language reform to introduce a phonetic spelling system (WYSIWYHear) which would also lead to a somewhat standardized accent. The local ways of pronouncing words, can still…
The title seems apt actually. I think 'universe' here refers to the concept of a set so large that it is closed under all set theoretic operations and since mathematical operations reduce to set theoretic operations (in…
To me, 'hack' and 'unintuitive' carry different meanings. 'Hack' indicates some kind of ad-hoc patch to fix the model. Even if it fits the data, there could be a theoretical irregularity. I suspect that programmers…
This shouldn't be surprising given that the traditional maps of the Vipassana explicitly talk about negative stages. The problem is that somehow this information is not commonly known. It would benefit practitioners a…
Reasoning from basic principles is a valuable tool to evaluate conclusions. Sure, it has strong weaknesses (hidden assumptions which are wrong, insufficient imagination about what could happen, rationalizing one's…
We need a higher resolution in our vocabulary when talking about technological risks. Someone can be in favour of most forms of technology, and yet even when dealing with technologies with extinction risk, the word that…
Well, I'd love to be wrong about this and hope that you are right. What worries me is that key parts of the technology, like the processor, sensors and software might be available cheaply due to their civilian uses.…
In twenty years or so, this could easily be widely available, just like machine guns today. Even if there was an explicit ban on the endproduct itself, the basic technology could be understood well enough to allow…
In your metamorphosis example, is the finished project essentially be a robot? Would you have the same problem when a software agent is transferred from one computer to another? Assume a negative answer. Then, the…
> he talks about how its impossible to make an algorithm tile a grid in a certain way. My guess, is that here he is talking about undecidability which appears quite often in mathematical problems, maybe something…
I guess the problem is you need to pay a significant amount of money to file a claim. Interestingly, some have advocated the same method for preventing spam in email by requiring you to pay a very small amount every…
Otoh, one of the early tests for general relativity was a minor deviation in Mercury's orbit from what was predicted by classical mechanics. My rough intuition is that inconsistencies can show up initially as faint…
Sometimes though, not finding good names might just be an indication of the newness or non-standardized nature of the situation you are using the name in. Even in natural languages, there are concepts/situations which…
Someone already mentioned PLOT. This would be a good thing to lookup when designing your hygienic macro system, http://users.rcn.com/david-moon/PLOT/index.html. The author was also involved in Dylan, which is another…
The counterpoint here would be that memorization happens more naturally when practicing, as frequently used knowledge is automatically memorized. I remember school courses in history and chemistry where requirements of…
My solution to this problem was to print the todo file whenever a terminal is opened using .bashrc. It works much better as I see the terminal more often than the desktop.
Yes, a place to take exams could be one of the important services the center provides. There could be an independent exam standards organization, which would check that the exams at center are fairly conducted.…
Once we have a well-indexed high quality video and course material archive (not fully there yet), there is a lot of potential for learning centers where students can go for immersion into a study environment. These…
> It's one of the biggest metropolis areas in the world and it still has a small-town feel. Offtopic, but this is something that was very striking when I watched, what is one of my favorite TV shows,…
I thought blocking IP addresses itself was a part of the proposed law. If that happens, this wont help. Using proxies is a solution, but this will make things much slower, especially for videos.
Yes, as long as one still needs to look at the screen there is still scope for ads. On-screen ads, if they are small enough, aren't annoying and sometimes they are useful too. There will be some interesting dynamics…
I guess one reason people see siri as a threat to google is that if voice based interfaces take off, no matter who does it, there is less scope for advertisements - which are more annoying when spoken out loud. It's…
There seem to be a lot of defensive comments, which I guess, seem to be coming from the focus on individual guilt. Focussing too much on individual choice is examining a particular solution approach and not the problem…
One important thing to note is that cyclone hit Orissa at low tide. Floods, more than wind speed, seem to be the the important factor. There was flooding some time after Phailin in Andhra Pradesh due to heavy rains and…
Interesting. This is a very detailed effort, with encyclopaedic ambitions across different languages. The question is if there is a lightweight version of this - someway of chosing a reasonably small set of phonemes…
Maybe, we should have an international language reform to introduce a phonetic spelling system (WYSIWYHear) which would also lead to a somewhat standardized accent. The local ways of pronouncing words, can still…
The title seems apt actually. I think 'universe' here refers to the concept of a set so large that it is closed under all set theoretic operations and since mathematical operations reduce to set theoretic operations (in…
To me, 'hack' and 'unintuitive' carry different meanings. 'Hack' indicates some kind of ad-hoc patch to fix the model. Even if it fits the data, there could be a theoretical irregularity. I suspect that programmers…
This shouldn't be surprising given that the traditional maps of the Vipassana explicitly talk about negative stages. The problem is that somehow this information is not commonly known. It would benefit practitioners a…
Reasoning from basic principles is a valuable tool to evaluate conclusions. Sure, it has strong weaknesses (hidden assumptions which are wrong, insufficient imagination about what could happen, rationalizing one's…
We need a higher resolution in our vocabulary when talking about technological risks. Someone can be in favour of most forms of technology, and yet even when dealing with technologies with extinction risk, the word that…
Well, I'd love to be wrong about this and hope that you are right. What worries me is that key parts of the technology, like the processor, sensors and software might be available cheaply due to their civilian uses.…
In twenty years or so, this could easily be widely available, just like machine guns today. Even if there was an explicit ban on the endproduct itself, the basic technology could be understood well enough to allow…
In your metamorphosis example, is the finished project essentially be a robot? Would you have the same problem when a software agent is transferred from one computer to another? Assume a negative answer. Then, the…
> he talks about how its impossible to make an algorithm tile a grid in a certain way. My guess, is that here he is talking about undecidability which appears quite often in mathematical problems, maybe something…
I guess the problem is you need to pay a significant amount of money to file a claim. Interestingly, some have advocated the same method for preventing spam in email by requiring you to pay a very small amount every…
Otoh, one of the early tests for general relativity was a minor deviation in Mercury's orbit from what was predicted by classical mechanics. My rough intuition is that inconsistencies can show up initially as faint…
Sometimes though, not finding good names might just be an indication of the newness or non-standardized nature of the situation you are using the name in. Even in natural languages, there are concepts/situations which…
Someone already mentioned PLOT. This would be a good thing to lookup when designing your hygienic macro system, http://users.rcn.com/david-moon/PLOT/index.html. The author was also involved in Dylan, which is another…
The counterpoint here would be that memorization happens more naturally when practicing, as frequently used knowledge is automatically memorized. I remember school courses in history and chemistry where requirements of…
My solution to this problem was to print the todo file whenever a terminal is opened using .bashrc. It works much better as I see the terminal more often than the desktop.
Yes, a place to take exams could be one of the important services the center provides. There could be an independent exam standards organization, which would check that the exams at center are fairly conducted.…
Once we have a well-indexed high quality video and course material archive (not fully there yet), there is a lot of potential for learning centers where students can go for immersion into a study environment. These…
> It's one of the biggest metropolis areas in the world and it still has a small-town feel. Offtopic, but this is something that was very striking when I watched, what is one of my favorite TV shows,…
I thought blocking IP addresses itself was a part of the proposed law. If that happens, this wont help. Using proxies is a solution, but this will make things much slower, especially for videos.
Yes, as long as one still needs to look at the screen there is still scope for ads. On-screen ads, if they are small enough, aren't annoying and sometimes they are useful too. There will be some interesting dynamics…
I guess one reason people see siri as a threat to google is that if voice based interfaces take off, no matter who does it, there is less scope for advertisements - which are more annoying when spoken out loud. It's…