The linguistics of the term "assassination" here is interesting. In the old days, we'd just bomb whatever place we thought the bad guys were hiding, and anti-war types complained about the civilian casualties. So we got…
I've noticed that many non-scientists who have read Drexler seem to acquire a level of belief that has more in common with religion than science. Religious characteristics of this include: 1. Getting so angry about…
Is there any way I can get rid of the caption that tells me where I am? I think it would be more fun as a guessing game. Look at the local vegetation, architecture, and kinds of cars you see around, and see if you can…
Actually it was originally considered mysterious why almost all craters don't look like this, at least on airless bodies, since glancing-angle impacts should be, from geometric arguments, a lot more common than…
I think it's more to do with people being uncomfortable about being in a room with somebody significantly better-dressed, especially if the better-dressed person is in the inferior position. So they'll feel the need to…
If you think someone's being timid and really does need a break, it's more common to ask if they want to "take a break" rather than asking flat out if they need to go potty. I don't think I'd want to hire somebody who…
You do realize that even people who have incredibly good prediction records, do get things wrong. You can't really point to a specific thing and say, "you suck because you didn't predict this". Look at the totality of…
The thing about economics is that there's two diametrically opposed schools of thought on just about any issue you'd like to name. Krugman is a smart dude, and a fierce advocate for one side of any given issue, but I…
If there's one they find "particularly intriguing" I'm guessing it's a rocky planet within the habitable (ie liquid water) zone. It would have to be a relatively cool star, since it would have to be orbiting more than…
There is absolutely no way to tell the colour of an exoplanet using Kepler or any other telescope we have.
These guys are mostly product development and marketing guys, and are the experts in the "what people want" side. The startup founders will bring technical backgrounds to the table; they don't need advisors who can tell…
It's also boring, ugly, and at a level of sophistication roughly equivalent to a depressed fourteen-year-old kid's poetry Waaah, life sucks And you're going to die Isn't it horrible And meaningless? Portal at least has…
How is it "borderline scam"? How are they hoping to profit at your expense by offering you $40K and then not letting you spend it?
Isn't the scale of it comparable to YCombinator? YC certainly gets a lot of mentions here (not entirely unrelated to the fact that they run the site, but still...).
At its peak, the company employed a third of the British workforce and was responsible for a huge tranche of global trade. I knew it was big, but a third of the British workforce? That's insane. Anyway, I welcome the…
"Same position in space" isn't well-defined anyway. There's no fixed set of coordinates permeating the entire universe. But it's clear enough what is meant in this case. I wonder, though, it should be in the same…
OK, that's part of the answer: now why do some other drinks (beer and wine spring to mind) taste worse through a straw?
It's not really nitpicking, "easiest" isn't well-defined. Quickest, lowest effort, or highest probability of working? I know a way to make a million dollars in the next 24 hours, but its probability of working is very…
Trite BS. I don't know what the going conversion rate between pain and dollars is, but I'm sure if you go down to your local homeless shelter you can find someone who has suffered many millions of dollars' worth of pain…
Why, that's easy. 1. Get a job that pays $50,000 a year. 2. Live off the first $20,000 a year. 3. Put the remaining $30,000 a year into the highest-yielding savings account you can find. 4. After about thirty years, you…
The linguistics of the term "assassination" here is interesting. In the old days, we'd just bomb whatever place we thought the bad guys were hiding, and anti-war types complained about the civilian casualties. So we got…
I've noticed that many non-scientists who have read Drexler seem to acquire a level of belief that has more in common with religion than science. Religious characteristics of this include: 1. Getting so angry about…
Is there any way I can get rid of the caption that tells me where I am? I think it would be more fun as a guessing game. Look at the local vegetation, architecture, and kinds of cars you see around, and see if you can…
Actually it was originally considered mysterious why almost all craters don't look like this, at least on airless bodies, since glancing-angle impacts should be, from geometric arguments, a lot more common than…
I think it's more to do with people being uncomfortable about being in a room with somebody significantly better-dressed, especially if the better-dressed person is in the inferior position. So they'll feel the need to…
If you think someone's being timid and really does need a break, it's more common to ask if they want to "take a break" rather than asking flat out if they need to go potty. I don't think I'd want to hire somebody who…
You do realize that even people who have incredibly good prediction records, do get things wrong. You can't really point to a specific thing and say, "you suck because you didn't predict this". Look at the totality of…
The thing about economics is that there's two diametrically opposed schools of thought on just about any issue you'd like to name. Krugman is a smart dude, and a fierce advocate for one side of any given issue, but I…
If there's one they find "particularly intriguing" I'm guessing it's a rocky planet within the habitable (ie liquid water) zone. It would have to be a relatively cool star, since it would have to be orbiting more than…
There is absolutely no way to tell the colour of an exoplanet using Kepler or any other telescope we have.
These guys are mostly product development and marketing guys, and are the experts in the "what people want" side. The startup founders will bring technical backgrounds to the table; they don't need advisors who can tell…
It's also boring, ugly, and at a level of sophistication roughly equivalent to a depressed fourteen-year-old kid's poetry Waaah, life sucks And you're going to die Isn't it horrible And meaningless? Portal at least has…
How is it "borderline scam"? How are they hoping to profit at your expense by offering you $40K and then not letting you spend it?
Isn't the scale of it comparable to YCombinator? YC certainly gets a lot of mentions here (not entirely unrelated to the fact that they run the site, but still...).
At its peak, the company employed a third of the British workforce and was responsible for a huge tranche of global trade. I knew it was big, but a third of the British workforce? That's insane. Anyway, I welcome the…
"Same position in space" isn't well-defined anyway. There's no fixed set of coordinates permeating the entire universe. But it's clear enough what is meant in this case. I wonder, though, it should be in the same…
OK, that's part of the answer: now why do some other drinks (beer and wine spring to mind) taste worse through a straw?
It's not really nitpicking, "easiest" isn't well-defined. Quickest, lowest effort, or highest probability of working? I know a way to make a million dollars in the next 24 hours, but its probability of working is very…
Trite BS. I don't know what the going conversion rate between pain and dollars is, but I'm sure if you go down to your local homeless shelter you can find someone who has suffered many millions of dollars' worth of pain…
Why, that's easy. 1. Get a job that pays $50,000 a year. 2. Live off the first $20,000 a year. 3. Put the remaining $30,000 a year into the highest-yielding savings account you can find. 4. After about thirty years, you…