gsk22

Are "topic icebergs" really a meme? Sure, they're an internet phenomenon, but that doesn't automatically qualify as a meme.

A microwave is a tool, and like all tools, sometimes it's a good fit for the job and sometimes not.

I also prefer home cooking, but resent the implication that my cooking is inferior because I sometimes use a microwave.

While I applaud the recent-ish improvements to PHP, the biggest issue is still unresolved: the standard library is a mess. It is inconsistent as a rule -- in terms of function naming, argument order, error behaviors, etc.

I think this issue is probably intractable unless PHP wants to go the Python route and have a hard fork.

Both things can be true.

Fossil fuels have certainly helped improve the lives of billions. At the same time, the negative impact can't be overstated, and only gets worse with time (the more the climate changes, the higher the future cost).

Additionally, oil extracted in California for domestic consumption doesn't affect third world countries, so it's irrelevant what positive impact it might make halfway across the world.

If you include the costs of pollution and climate change, I'm sure the "total value" of the extracted oil is well in the negative.

Either way, there is no reason to let companies off the hook for their negative impacts just because the product they produce has some societal benefit.

Yes, and sometimes we instead leave obsolete technology in place as a living museum.

Again, surely a compromise could be found -- replace, say, 98% of the gas lamps, but leave 2% functioning in a special historic district.

With smart leadership and marketing, such historic areas can drive considerable tourist and economic activity as well.

I can't tell if this is sarcastic so maybe I'm taking the bait here.

Regardless, there is probably a middle ground for the lamps between "widespread use" and "extinction". It's not great that they are inefficient, but they are certainly historical, and the emissions from a few thousand gas lamps are a drop in the bucket for Berlin and the world.

I would argue that the cultural, historical and educational value of the lamps should be given weight against the downsides and preserved to some extent.

My point is that for caching to be cost-effective, it requires long lifetimes -- especially if your # of users is relatively low.

Especially for an app like Reddit with millions of subreddits. There is no monolithic "reddit"; the experience is tailored to each user based on the subs they've joined. So your % of requests that will be asking for a cached resource is lower than other high-volume websites. I think your 99-to-1 estimate is _way_ off.

Would you use a client where the most popular threads are constantly out of date due to caching? I certainly wouldn't.

You're playing a semantics game. How is a mandatory check of your residence status not a search?

If Facebook is any indication, schools have been failing to teach order of operations for decades.

My older relatives are the ones I see repost these inane order-of-operation tests, getting the answer consistently wrong.

It's hard not to notice that this is essentially the same argument people made against TV ("the boob tube").

People just stare at the TV constantly. Parents let the TV raise their kids. People watch TV even on vacation. TV has made kids stupid.

And it probably goes back further -- can you believe the parents letting radio raise their kids? Don't get me started on the children who spend all day staring at words in a book. I have a teacher friend who says cuneiform carvings have made kids stupid since around 1000 BC.

Now obviously overconsumption of any media can be unhealthy, but there seems to be a lot of fear-mongering over social media that isn't well-justified. It's just "old man yells at clouds" for the digital age. Lots of broad assertions and very little evidence to back them up.

> pretty sure “turn of sentence” does not exists in English

We do say "turn of phrase" in English, which means something similar. I wonder if both have the same origin.

> I think dictating power based on war ability makes way more sense than everyone having a say simply by virtue of breathing.

I honestly can't tell if you're trolling. In what world is it better to instead give all the say to one person? Especially a person selected solely by their prowess for violence (or in leading others to violence)?

Stylistically, pop has changed significantly even in the past 10 years. Going back 20, the differences are even more striking. Of course, chart-topping pop songs are mostly very manufactured, but that's been true for 100 years.

Rock is no longer a "mainstream" genre, in the sense that rock acts generally don't top the charts or occupy a large space in the zeitgeist (hip hop has replaced rock in this area). But I think this has been healthy for rock; the genre is now more fractured, and as a result, more varied and experimental. (Don't @ me metalheads. I love metal too but it is not a mainstream genre)

Sorry if that got a bit rambly -- just wanted to point out that there is tons of evolution in contemporary music. It can be harder to see that, though, since music streaming has taken a big chunk out of the music monoculture. That means finding interesting music is more accessible, but requires individual effort to seek out (and the sheer quantity can be overwhelming).

Well, there are no special restrictions for experimentals over populated areas, but they are still subject to all the standard restrictions (1000ft above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2000ft) and any airspace restrictions.

Out of curiosity, what were the videos? The algorithm (advertisers?) is certainly picky...

Oh, come on, you're being willfully ignorant if you believe there is no relation between the two.

Sure, the buyback plans were made before the derailment, but the fact that plans haven't change shows how little they care about the victims versus their profits.

Even ignoring individual blame, there is the question whether as a society we should allow corporations in general to distribute huge sums of money to their shareholders after a fiscally-significant incident like this. Victims will require compensation, probably for decades. If the company reorganizes or folds in bankruptcy -- which seems somewhat likely -- we the taxpayers will be stuck holding the bag.

As someone who is very much not a lawyer -- isn't one of the major gripes about arbitration that it precludes class action suits?

Certifying a class is a lot easier than thousands of individuals going through repetitive arbitrations. And of course, there is the benefit (for the corporation) that a large percentage of people will find arbitration too burdensome.

How has the ACLU lost its way? Is there a specific incident that happened?

I don't follow these things too closely, but my perception is they continue to do the same kind of work they always have.

It is orders of magnitude harder to cross the US national border than between states or counties.

Either way, I don't understand this idea that we shouldn't care for Americans because what if some non-Americans got in?

> There better be, in standard the meta game is basically designed in a lab and prescribed to the player base.

The sheer number of bans in standard the past few years proves this isn't the case. That might be the image Wizards' designers like to project, but it is clear they are not able to predict how players will use the cards they print.

> Commander is a casual format, it’s not competitive nor meant to be.

There is literally a competitive commander format (cEDH), and the "hell queue" in historic brawl on Arena shows that there are other very competitive commander-based formats.

> It’s been impossible to take the game seriously from a competitive standpoint for about the past decade where they’ve continued to move further and further from the block-core annual release cycle.

What does the set release cycle have to do with the health of competitive Magic? I mean, sure, there's no yearly core set anymore, but so what?

- Reprints (actual or functional) of staple cards still get made in every set.

- There is still a diverse metagame in standard.

- I don't draft much, but I've heard positive things about several of the last sets' limited environments.

- New formats like commander have created new competitive environments.

- Arena and digital formats like alchemy bring new players to the game and competitive scene

Feels to me like, despite Wizards doing everything possible to screw things up, competitive Magic is in a pretty good spot at the moment.

That might be fine for the HN crowd, but cloud password managers are still the best solution out there for the typical person.

Sure, if you only look at the minutae. At a high level, a relationship is a bond between two people, so it's unfair to lay all the blame solely at the feet of the other person. You've probably done things that make your partner unhappy as well.

The mature way to approach the problem is to work together to resolve the issues -- or if that isn't possible, terminate the relationship. You can't just make yourself the victim and say it's all the other's fault.

The difference is the original statement was not about a specific man's experience; it was a generalization about married men's experiences as a whole.

Saying "I was in an unhappy marriage and it made me a great philosopher" would be fine. It's the generalization which is an issue here.

There are plenty of layers at which it's misogynistic, but the most obvious one perhaps is that it wholly centers around the man in the relationship. Why must the wife be the source of the husband's unhappiness ("nagging wife" trope)? Why does he get to be the great philosopher if they're both unhappy?

You can say "it's just a saying, it would be equally true with the roles reversed" -- but then, why aren't they?

Sure, on the misogyny scale, it's pretty mild, but sayings like this that implicitly reinforce the male-centered world we live in are in some ways the most insidious.

Right on the money, except in my social circle replace WhatsApp with Snapchat.

I don't think any one communication app can ever gain a true monopoly because of the social incentives to isolate groups of relationships. Having totally different apps makes enforcing that easy ("sorry, Aunt Madge, I didn't see your friend request on Snapchat. We're Facebook friends though, right?")

I doubt (but have no evidence to disprove) that simulated child porn causes viewers to act on those desires in the real world.

It's not as if people will be "converted" to child porn by viewing these images; rather, it will be viewed by people who already have a predisposition to such content. My gut says it might reduce real-world incidence if they can get their rocks off to digital content, rather than feeling compelled to do so in reality.

But as you pointed out, there is very little credible research on this topic, so it's hard to say conclusively.

No, everyone needs food. Not everyone is addicted to it.

Maybe in the loosey-goosey "I'm addicted to chocolate" way, but not in the "I habitually over-consume despite the negative consequences" way.