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guuz

222 karma · joined July 14, 2017

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guuz··on Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug
Since Friday, I've been pouring hours and hours into the game. It is marvelous, but arguably inferior to their previous titles on a highly subjective level (I've missed, for example, the more accentuated dread and hopelessness of Dark Souls and Bloodborne). I guess these points will probably be addressed more thoughtfully by people more qualified than me in due time.

The more flagrant problem is the abysmal graphical performance for 2022 standards — it is borderline unacceptable, no art direction can compensate for the insistence on a clearly obsolete tech foundation. I wonder why they are reluctant to change.

guuz··on I dropped out of MIT and started a new college in San Francisco, AMA
I think I have a somewhat unpopular and romantic opinion: a tertiary education is important not only for what you can learn in regular classes (or the prospects this learning may give you), but the knowledge you can gain outside of them if you are interested in doing so. I studied at a fairly big public university in the third world, not very special by any standards, but the experience of being inside an academic center, with access to people from a myriad of backgrounds studying very different disciplines opened my mind irrevocably. And, I believe, made me a much better engineer.

I recognise that very few people have an opportunity like the one I had and a two year degree with an extreme focus is more suitable for some folks, mainly because of the absurd tuition costs in the US (I studied for free). But it seems the concept of the university serving as a knowledge hub is fading away and giving way to a hyper capitalistic vision where only your future paychecks matter thanks to a kind of social anxiety.

guuz··on Apple announces Apple Card credit card
Surprisingly the service is widely avaialible in my country (Brazil). Almost every credit card reader down here has NFC
guuz··on The Power of Prolog
Very good material. Prolog (or the ideas behind it) really needs a resurgence.
guuz··on [dead]
It is not strictly the same, but Marx enabled the tragedies of the 20th century with his philosophy. Crucial points are vague (he, for example, said almost nothing relevant about socialism) and the teleological force of his assumptions created a kind of infallibility framework exploited by the dictatorships to justify their deeds. The communism practiced behind the iron curtain was a perfect valid interpretation of his work.

I recommend a really big book called 'Main Currents of Marxism' by the late ex-communist polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski.

guuz··on The Worst Job in Technology: Staring at Human Depravity to Keep It Off Facebook
It's a good space for regulation. The treatment these workers are subjected to is ignominious.
guuz··on The Worst Job in Technology: Staring at Human Depravity to Keep It Off Facebook
Facebook is a private company and it has the right to regulate speech in its digital properties (at least it seems the case in the US). You also are not bound to it, theoretically, so you can go elsewhere and say what you wanna say. I write theoretically because Facebook is so pervasive where I live that we cannot simply ignore it.
guuz··on Consciousness: Where Are Words?
> Ok well there you go. I was basing it on your earlier definition.

Sorry, but it was my first comment on the thread. You are confusing me with the guy that posted earlier. I apologize for entering in the middle of your conversation.

> So define the word contemplate.

Contemplate: to observe something and to entertain thoughts about it.

Imply that self preservation is an example of self consciousness is not sufficient for me. Plants too react to stimuli and they don't even have a nervous system (edit: neurons are not a sine qua non condition, obviously. I was only pointing to the fact that simpler organisms react to the environment, it is one of the most basic evolutionary strategies). It is necessary something more.

As the poster before me said, there are boundaries. They can be not clear, but they exist.

guuz··on Consciousness: Where Are Words?
> Crabs are self conscious too because they act with a purpose of self preservation, which requires knowledge of what is them and what is not them.

It's a bit more complicated. Self consciousness is the ability to contemplate mental states, some philosophers say. Crabs do not contemplate their own mental states, they simply act and feel.

guuz··on What's Wrong with Students?
I did not know this, quite interesting. I will try to find an explanation of the phenomena
guuz··on What's Wrong with Students?
I am brazilian and our education system is notoriously bad, any international ranking can attest it. I've seen many brutal errors made by university students, but this particular example striked me as almost unbelievable. Thanks for the answer
guuz··on What's Wrong with Students?
I suppose I've got just a normal third world education, but even with my poor background I considered the cats example somewhat extreme. Is this kind of thing really common?
guuz··on SF engineer came to money and now wants wife to sign a post-nuptial agreement
He mysteriously does not see her as a contributor to his success or is a d*ck. The impact a person has in our lives obviously cannot be calculated, but cannot be simply ignored. If they have been together for six fricking years, how can he dismiss her influence on him? Considering they have a functional relationship, she probably has been helping him on infinite occasions, from domestic chores to emotional support.

This guy is being ridiculous.

guuz··on UK minister to tell universities to stop 'no-platforming' speakers
No, it is not. One can easily destroy nazi-fascism without being apocaliptic, and I think that welcoming this ideology in universities is a waste of time, as I said earlier.

The Charlottesville guys were not trying to engage in an educated debate or expose their opinions to scrutiny, their creed does not accommodate the very idea of dissent. Few among them [edit: previously " Few fascists"] are brave or patient enough to be civilized. Groups like theirs generally value shock tactics and its meeting was mainly conceived as a demonstration of power.

Like-minded people, good or bad, will reunite and some groups will use the US free speech laws to propagate their hate and attract more followers. It is a very different scenario than polemic opinions being treated like a civilizational hazard in England (or elsewhere). Gay rigths, desegragation and many other ideas now taken for granted were once unpopular. History does not moves always forward and everyone that values freedom needs caution when considering politics regulating speech - they can be used for nefarious purposes or create unexpected precedents.

[Edit: formatting and grammar]

guuz··on Ask HN: Why do you use DuckDuckGo?
I decided to live an almost Google-free life. I do not use Gmail or Chrome anymore (Fastmail and Firefox), and I try its search only when the results on DDG are unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, the DDG search is not on par with Google's in my country (Brazil), but it is generally good enough and getting better.
guuz··on UK minister to tell universities to stop 'no-platforming' speakers
I consider myself a free speech proponent, but I do not feel comfortable with fines. Groups that defend/want to hear unpopular opinions should organize themselves to oppose hysterical speech and to guide the debate to a less aggressive rhetoric. Is it an ideal and distant solution? Maybe, but is better than official coercion. There must be a way, most people are not downright hostile to controversy.

Edit: I do think that welcoming some ideas is a waste of time, or perhaps dangerous (fascism, for example). But I cannot see why Peter Tatchell is an imminent danger.

guuz··on New York's vanishing shops and storefronts: 'It's not Amazon, it's rent'
I live in a famous third world city and the same thing is happening here. Sometimes stores with more than 100 years close because some hedge fund buys the entire street and, hoping to transform the place in a multi-million commercial condo for the ultra rich, raises the rent to impossible prices. E-commerce is a thing, but not as pervasive as in the US. The city culture is being put at risk simply by predatory capitalism
guuz··on Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'
This kind of piece is usually boring (not only The Guardian ones btw), but they have an important purpose: remind us of the ridiculousness of our culture. We need every help possible, believe me
guuz··on We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11326940
guuz··on Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy
The forums were/are usually catering to niches. Facebook is a behemoth. To many people, the internet is basically it.
guuz··on Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy
FB is not obligated to listen to every media outlet in the world when it decides to change its product, but certainly it's ethical to estimate the impact a change will cause on society, how small it can be. Remember: they are not testing the new feed in established and healthy democracies, but in places where independent journalism needs to gain traction
guuz··on Clarifying Recent Tests
As pointed out by a Human Rights Watch member (https://twitter.com/NicDawes/status/922622481311166464), they ran the test in countries with recent and/or fragile democracies, where independent media needs every single help possible. All this mess is a fricking disaster.
guuz··on Facebook's News Feed experiment panics publishers
As pointed by a Human Rights Watch member (https://twitter.com/NicDawes/status/922622481311166464), they ran the test in countries with recent and/or fragile democracies, where independent media needs every single help possible. All this mess is a fricking disaster
guuz··on Sailfish OS – Independent Mobile OS
Could the Firefox OS become a viable true open source alternative? I know Mozilla abandoned the project two years ago etc, but some fork can continue the work. I simply do not see how it can be done
guuz··on The computer poetry of J. M. Coetzee’s early programming career
Brainfuck?
guuz··on The computer poetry of J. M. Coetzee’s early programming career
He fictionalized his time as a computer programmer in the book 'Youth'. It's superb.
guuz··on Redis 4.0
> you shouldn't discount the power of words and symbols

Words are not static entities. Language evolves in unpredictable ways. Master/slave became jargon based on a truly despicable thing, unfortunately, but the original meaning is an irrelevant detail in our technical context.

One can attack the idea of "context", but I think it is not very effective, or even honest. It is a leap of logic to imply that a single expression used in very specific moments is somehow related to atrocities happening right now. The words (and symbols and culture and ideas) argument is a killer abstraction and anything can be said with it.

I am black and I live in an extremely racist society. The habit of discussing this kind of thing can have a negative impact on what really matters. Even empathetic people could become tired.

Ps: my english is not that great.