gnode

The simulation argument in my mind arises from thinking about the universe in terms of computation. The concept of computing and tractability comes from limitations and phenomena we see in the universe: energy and the arrow of time. Yet, the arrow of time doesn't appear to be fundamental to the constitution of the universe (with the laws of physics being identical in reverse), but only an emergent property of entropy. Like a human-inspired sentient creator, the simulation is the most in-reach explanation of creation for a given perspective.

We could look beyond the limitations of thermodynamics, and consider that the contents of spacetime may just exist in the same way as the contents of pi or the Mandelbrot set exists.

Why must the universe be "created" at all by computation, when computation doesn't even seem to be a fundamental, but only an emergent property of it?

Mathematics generally may not be a property of the universe or "world", but the world may constrain what mathematics may be understood or computed within it.

The choice of axiomatic system limits what is provable in mathematics, as demonstrated by Godel's theorem in the case of natural number arithmetic. The world may limit that choice of axiomatic system or the computability of theorems. There may be mathematical theories which are true but we can not prove within the physical bounds of our universe.

I think more importantly: civilisation on Mars is a pipe dream without figuring out a significant motivation to live on Mars.

Mars is an inhospitable place, but technology allows us to live in inhospitable places.

In many ways, I expect Mars is like Antarctica. Once the initial romanticism of pioneering fades, it will have only very niche attractiveness for specific scientific causes. It used to be a popular idea that technological advancement would see us populating Antarctica and underground / undersea environments, yet despite that being possible with modern technology (e.g. nuclear powered greenhouses), we've not justified the endeavour.

There are various guides for enabling it in web servers that support it. It requires HTTPS as a prerequisite.

For testing it in the browser: in Chrome at least, the developer tools Network tab details the protocol of each request/response. I believe Firefox has similar functionality.

Inflation is typically measured by the price of a basket of goods and services designed to be representative of what is actually consumed. If the shrinking or growing of offerings simply changes what is consumed, then there is no real inflation change. What is measured depends on the definition of the basket of goods (does it contain "Mars bar" or "62.5g of chocolate bar").

The definitions of baskets of goods used to measure inflation tend to be changed over time to represent changes in consumption, such as 27" TV to 32" like you mention. As the 32" TV would be more expensive, this would create sudden inflation, however, this is diluted by the large size of the basket.

The quantity or size of the product is not important for measuring inflation, unless it creates a change in consumption. E.g. do people now buy two chocolate bars to sate their appetite? Do people buy fewer TVs because a TV of twice the areal size can substitute two smaller TVs?

I'm not sure the governmental form of republic is terribly useful to discussions of fairness or freedom in societies. Norway, Sweden, Denmark and New Zealand appear at the top of the Democracy Index, and are democratic constitutional monarchies. North Korea, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic are republics and among the most tyrannous societies.

> it s not reminiscent

As is the nature of futurism.

I wonder if this is because the curvature of the Multipla makes us interpret it as organic and deformed, like a teratoma; it makes us feel disgust.

The Cybertruck is overtly synthetic and brutalist. It's to be admired for its impressiveness, not its beauty.

> A republic is a terrible system of government, but we haven't found anything better.

Variations of this quote are often banded about to apologise for and defend the imperfections of given democracies. It shuts down questions of electoral reform with the straw-man of autocracy. Not all democracies are equal.

I find it interesting that in politics it's generally regarded a truism that everyone with the right to vote should vote.

We don't say everyone should make up their mind on whether somebody is guilty of a crime -- we say a few specially informed jurors should make that determination.

This makes me wonder whether demarchy / sortition / Athenian democracy (rule by the randomly selected; similar to juries) is superior to elective democracy.

Antifa use physical violence to confront fascism. They regard free speech not to encompass hate speech.

On either side of various political disagreements, you commonly find each side regards the other's position as immoral, and the other person thus morally bankrupt. I think this is what's here referred to as dehumanising.

Arguments over abortion rights commonly frame the opposition as condoning infanticide on one side or violating bodily autonomy on the other. Each framing creates a morally bankrupt opposition.

Both those for and against socialism / redistribution of wealth see their opposition as wanting to take unearned wealth.

I think the only way in which "Microsoft loves Linux" can be scrutinised is: does a successful Linux ecosystem help or harm Microsoft.

That it forms part of their business model is not enough, if Microsoft would prefer dominance of its proprietary technologies.

Conceivably, the future of Microsoft's business model may be where development and maintenance of Windows / the NT kernel is deemed burdensome and not critical to their business, and Windows becomes a premium Linux distribution with legacy subsystems.

Using Linux at work, I'm indirectly a Microsoft customer, using Office 365 and Azure (an expanding portion of their business), yet the investment in Windows desktop is lost on me, and unnecessary to retain my business.

> It's admirable how hard you're trying not to be a part of the problem, but don't make yourself a martyr.

I find myself sceptical of whether this is altruism, or a justifying righteousness to explain fear of embarrassment or rejection.

Get involved in things where there is opportunity to meet nearby socially-adept well-connected people. Unlearn any prejudices you have about what kind of person you get along with.

The funny thing is that he identifies the nature of his problem -- that he does not value sociability enough to partake in regular social activity, but instead of admitting that his actualised priorities create a challenge for him, criticises the culture.

To me, this seems like someone who never trains complaining that they always fail to run marathons, and it's the fault of the steroid abuser.

> many different components of different structures

> yup, he is building a brain

The limbic system of the brain is made of many different structures. It handles much of the ancient fixed function instinctive operation of the brain -- heavily involved in sleep, reflexes, appetite, and motivation, for example.

However, our general intelligence and learning capability is mostly due to our neocortex, which has a highly regular structure. The neocortex also subsumes the roles of much of the limbic system as development progresses, overriding the specific structures.

This suggests to me that intelligence / learning doesn't benefit from specific structures, but from general structures, capable of encoding behaviour as data (by long-term potentiation of synaptic weights in the brain's case).

Memes are just comedy plus digital multimedia.

I think the rise of cringe and its encompassing genre of incidental humour is not due to the Internet / meme culture, but of recording generally. TV shows like "America's funniest home videos" and "You've been framed" feature a lot of cringe humour (much of it physical); film outtakes are cringe. Its existence depends on incidental recording. Social media produces so much cringe because it's always recording.

I find it interesting to consider that empathetic experience can make us hostile and less altruistic, and that this is a common yet little acknowledged phenomenon. To dehumanise, denigrate or expel someone is a way to reconcile empathy felt for them, and sometimes more obvious, accessible, or apparently righteous than altruism.

My experience is that if you don't participate in social media, people call / message you personally, or meet in person. I don't think communicating with family or friends by broadcasting into an abyss and fighting for their attention is an improvement on one-to-one dialogue.

I get the impression that for many people their main experience of Facebook is as a source of media with mixed social and commercial promotion. In this regard, Wales' social network is a rival.

> doesn't seem like enough to get critical mass on a social network.

I'm not sure it matters for this social network. It's positioning as a news-based platform doesn't require people you know personally to use the site in order for it to have value.

Perhaps conversely, too many people on a social network may be detrimental to these aims, as ever more narrow-minded echo chambers or factions can achieve critical mass.

> it matters where the audience is.

I don't think that strictly applies here; the stores don't play a predominant role in marketing the games (at least for popular titles), so they don't have exclusivity over an audience.

I think the relevant question is the extent customers decide not to purchase a game because it's exclusive to an alternative store.

While there are many benefits to nuclear power, this quote is at odds with your comment. Nuclear power suffers a low Carnot efficiency (around 30-40%), as it has an even lower operating temperature than the criticised old CSP design. While nuclear reactors can get arbitrarily hot, practical and safety considerations limit current designs to relatively low (and thus inefficient) temperatures.

Nuclear is also less practical for direct industrial use or distributed deployment because of safety concerns, with only a few exceptional cases like military marine propulsion.

I think the mention of computer vision is spurious. Their website doesn't mention it, or anything related. Any modern heliostat CSP system would use computer guidance, based on the predictable trajectory of the sun. There's nothing revolutionary here; this is just hype.

> or never reach feature parity with Steam

To some extent this is intentional. Epic Game's market research culminated in a decision to include fewer social features, and less visual clutter than Steam.

Epic Games seems to be competing more on the back-end, offering better rates and licensing to developers in return for distribution exclusivity, rather than the front-end with features for users. That said, as a user, I appreciate the minimalism of EGS.

I've been wondering lately whether Steam will be able to hold onto its large commission and market share, given the rise of competition like the Epic Games Store with a much more competitive commission rate. I can imagine these stores will have to increasingly differentiate themselves as technology platforms going forward (e.g. VR on Steam, or Unreal Engine licensing on EGS). In this way VR exclusive games make a lot of sense for Valve, to encourage people to buy into their platform.

A related issue is that software floating point must be used in the Linux kernel. Because floating point is rarely needed in kernel programming, FPU registers are not swapped when execution switches between kernel and user code. Instead, they're only switched when context switching between different processes using the FPU, and initially processes run with floating point instructions disabled.

> Basically it is almost always better to use integers when you can

I'd say: understand the limitations of FP, but it's almost always better to use them unless you have some particular precision or performance requirement. Then again, my experience of FP is mostly in graphics, where IEEE 754 single precision is good enough for almost anything you'd want, and hardware FP is commonplace.

I think it could be argued that case law is a prevalent form of ex post facto law in common law systems, and so constitutes an additional justification for statutes of limitations.

Many acts are ambiguously criminal, until clarified by a test case. Legal decisions are also often made in the context of time, taking into account what is commonly considered offensive, what a person is presumed to know (in establishing mens rea). It's difficult to try some crimes with a modern perspective and take into account what was considered acceptable in the past.

> Do you really believe they want gdpr?

It's not ideal for them, but I believe it benefits their monopoly position. Implementing the technical and compliance measures required by the GDPR is trivial at the scale of Google, but a significant barrier to entry for smaller competitors.

I don't believe they care about people's privacy either, but it's a noble cause to be exploited. I think what they really want is regulatory hurdles that stifle competition, but have no real impact on their business.

I expect they want to shape emerging legislation to include the likes of: appoint a dedicated data protection officer; have a process by which customers can request their data; produce quarterly reports. Things which place a proportionately larger burden on smaller businesses (which perhaps can even be sold to them as services), but don't limit the collection or processing of data.