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asfgionio

33 karma · joined April 6, 2018

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asfgionio··on Decades-Old Graph Problem Yields to Amateur Mathematician
This is how most people work. They value their own lives and their own happiness over that of others. They will gladly buy their luxuries and let dozens of people die as long as they don't have to see them suffer. We all know this.

Just don't fool yourself. The reason we value our own happiness over the lives of others is because we are weak. That's something we have to live with, but it doesn't make it good.

>You could say the same thing about any other startup.

And I do!

asfgionio··on What Bill Gates was doing at 20 years old
>What makes you the judge of a "great programmer"?

What makes the market the judge? It's picked some really terrible technology.

>Sorry, no matter Bill Gates' programming skills, he was a genius at running and growing a business.

Why is "running and growing a business" a good thing? I would say Microsoft is pretty good evidence that it's often harmful.

Do you think Elizabeth Holmes, Al Capone, and Bernie Madoff deserve to be rich? They were all pretty good at what they did.

asfgionio··on Many Bitcoin Miners Are at Risk of Turning Unprofitable
>That's just how economics works.

I find it interesting that people who talk about how things are "simple economics" very rarely understand economics.

The economic definition of "efficiency" is not just "everyone doing whatever they want."

asfgionio··on What Bill Gates was doing at 20 years old
>Being rich had nothing to do with him selling an OS to IBM.

Yes, a stolen OS he had no part in developing.

I don't doubt that he's a competent programmer (or was at one point). I see no evidence that he's a great one. There are programmers with ten times his ability who will never see 0.01% of his money.

asfgionio··on GPUs Mine Astronomical Datasets for Golden Insight Nuggets
Gridcoin is the biggest I'm aware of. Most people who mine it (that I've spoken to) think of it as a way of subsidizing their hardware and electricity, not as a get-rich-quick scheme. Since it lets you choose what project to work on, you can choose one that you approve of and that is well-suited to your hardware.

I was considering buying some old servers to mine it. I'd have pretty much broken even back when it was $0.10/grc, but it would have taken me ages to make back my investment.

asfgionio··on Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction
Bear in mind that Apple keeps 30% of App Store revenue, which is tens of billions of dollars a year. If they just sold the hardware they wouldn't care at all how much users use it, but if users are on their phones for hours on end it's more likely they'll spend money on apps.
asfgionio··on “Coming Out” as Face Blind
I think it would be harder than that. Bear in mind that this will use images of moving targets from strange angles in poor lighting. Is there any system that works that well, even out of something like Facebook or Google? Plus this has to be portable and battery-operated.

I know nothing about computer vision.

asfgionio··on “Coming Out” as Face Blind
Is there a good test for this I could take (preferably online)? I suspect I have a mild case and would like an objective test.
asfgionio··on Assumptions about how children learn to read have been disproven by research
I have read that the SAT is basically an IQ test in disguise. If that's true, there's no need for it to correspond to real-world skills. That's not what it's meant to test, and the only reason it deals with vocabulary and mathematics is to dodge the controversy surrounding IQ tests.

This is by no means the only perspective on the SAT, but it's a reasonable one.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/04/why-should-...

asfgionio··on Show HN: Tube – Minimalist YouTube
I would look at Youtube Feather. It was a stripped-down version of Youtube Google made several years back. Sadly it's discontinued now.

I think you've gone too far. Tearing out bloat and psychological manipulation is good, but it should have playlists, channels, and search filters. Those are important features for finding videos.

asfgionio··on Power9 Benchmarks vs. Intel Xeon vs. AMD EPYC Performance on Debian Linux
Some of the models even have 8-way SMT!
asfgionio··on Power9 Benchmarks vs. Intel Xeon vs. AMD EPYC Performance on Debian Linux
POWER doesn't have that many more threads. The top-of-the-line is 22-core 88-thread, compared to 32-core 64-thread from AMD and 28-core 56-thread from Intel.

I have no idea what having that many threads per core means for performance.

asfgionio··on Apple is making a show based on Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ books
>So I'm much more thrilled about Amazon developing a series based on Banks' "Consider Phlebas"...

So they're adapting the worst Culture book. It's probably the easiest to adapt, but it's by far the least interesting.

asfgionio··on Don't give away historic details about yourself
I am not entirely sure I agree. Maybe it's slightly paranoid, but I find it shocking how much information people share on the Internet.

I still abide by the old idea that you never share personal information on the Internet.

asfgionio··on Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain
I'm not protecting the status quo. I just want breathable air. Cryptocurrencies are an environmental disaster. We should go out of our way to destroy them.