Uhuhreally

I would pay for an iOS app that I could point at a graph I've drawn and get back an SVG together with a data structure representing the graph

this reminds me of that time blowhard Richard Dawkins disected an animal (can't remember which) and proceeded to bang on about how stupid the vagus nerve is, wandering all over the place as it does for no apparent reason. People used to say the same of the appendix and adenoids; that they're pointless vestiges, the blindness of evolution, contingent structures. Dawkins said obviously the nerve should simply connect directly instead of following its ancient evolutionary program up and down and around the organs.

A classic case of Chesterton’s Fence

would you prefer that he hid his light under a bushel ?

IDK but I know for a fact that I can comment with the same message in different ways and get upvoted or downvoted accordingly just by wording the the comment differently

No. It's because some people lie and cheat and exploit other people.

what then is the optimum level of inequality ?

What if 1 person owned all the money and everybody else worked for the promise of money ? Would that be enough inequality ?

because spacetime is curved by mass the matter in the centres of the Earth and Sun computes at a slower rate than matter at their surfaces so that from our point of view the centres of the Earth and Sun are younger because their clocks have ticked fewer times compared to their surfaces

as RedLetterMedia says: they're not movies, they're theme park rides

There exists a way to convert CO2 into high-capacity batteries but nobody's looking for it because they think the only way to make batteries is with Lithium

sorry is this real ? It read as satire

The one that gets me is

"feel free to <do this thing I am actually commanding you to do>"

"when you beat me I feel pain...I don't like to feel pain, perhaps you could stop beating me"

"I enjoy inflicting pain...your pain makes me happy...perhaps you could continue feeling the pain I inflict on you"

this is probably flawed logic but how are things today different from say 4000 years ago in a city where the ruler might employ local people known to have a good memory for faces to provide their services ?

"it sends your very complete fingerprint to google on its very first launch"

sorry could you explain in more detail please ?

they do both already

Although motorcycling is very dangerous, I don't think riders should be forced to wear anything. Instead I think the manatory training should go to a much more advanced level before you can go on the road.

I would like to see a ban on all ads. I am sick of them. I resent with all my heart that wherever I go I'm bombared with propaganda for products. Nobody should have the right to hijack other peoples attention.

given that the left visual field of both eyes is connected to the right hemisphere and the right visual field of both eyes is connected to the left hemisphere, I wonder about the claim that each eye scans a separate page. It doesn't make sense. Actually both eyes would see each page and so the left half of both pages would go to the right brain and the right half of both pages would go to the left brain.

can't believe Apple can't do its own manufacturing in USA or Europe

they incorrectly said they were comparing Clojure with Racket when in fact the example they gave was verbose Clojurescript

Actual comparison with Clojure:

  (require [clojure.data.json :as json])

  (defn xform [s]
     (-> s
         json/read-str
         (update "foo" + 2)
         json/write-str))

Your example is Clojurescript with interop

that doesn't make it right. Be kind to the bees

it's true that each of us usually lives in a story and we all live in a collective delusion.

But. We all know the feeling in our own lives of suddenly waking up getting real.

yes but I got the feeling the grandparent was confused so I tried to clarify that the only reason for the verbosity is interop - the Clojure code is much more concise than the Java - the interop code is like listening to a speech being translated between English and Spanish

In Clojure that's:

  (map (fn [x] (* 2 x)) [1 1 2 3 5])
  => (2 2 4 6 10)

you'd use Clojure not Java for an example like the above

Jira is the passive aggressive student fridge note system of communication

oh this one. "X isn't as bad as Y (where Y is worse) therefore X is OK, deal with it"

X and Y are completely unconnected and X is still bad and should be fixed.

Imagine if you went to the doctor with a fractured ankle and they said "well, it's not as bad as this baby I saw last week who was dying of sepsis. I suggest you count your blessings and deal with it"

And 6-figure salaries ? choose the value from the tail of the distribution to support your argument why don't you

couldn't agree more

This argument comes up often:

"tool X doesn't cause Y, people do"

However people _act differently_ when they are using tool X. When we are driving a vehicle, we _become_ the vehicle. When we hold a tool, the tool becomes part of our body. Our brains fuse clothing and tools with the body via the senses. To the brain, the car is part of our body so that we feel the road through the suspension and tires. You can't make a conveniently neat separation.