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pensativo

17 karma · joined March 24, 2018

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pensativo··on Homeland Security to Compile Database of Journalists, Bloggers
Does Cision track the entire world in all languages and include blogers ad social media influencers?
pensativo··on Homeland Security to Compile Database of Journalists, Bloggers
First, this is somewhat ambitious...

Second, what's the purpose of this? I can imagine it'll be quite useful to BBG properties like Voice of America, RadioFreeEurope and generally US government PR/propaganda, but how am I supposed to not worry that this will be used for censorship via US-based companies and some future law combating "fake news" and/or "hate speech"?

pensativo··on Ask HN: How to self-learn electronics?
This and youtube is what I did. Later on, you can get "The Art of Electronics"
pensativo··on Linux Kernel Lockdown and UEFI Secure Boot
Apologies, that wasn't relayed to me in what I've read so far. Good luck.
pensativo··on Linux Kernel Lockdown and UEFI Secure Boot
This is what @mjg95 should be saying.
pensativo··on A new technology, virtual embodiment, challenges our understanding of who we are
This reminds me of the time when I lost my sense of self for a moment, that suddenly the world was just kind of happening and I had no precedent over the cars passing, everything being quite equal. I guess it was a bit of ego-death without any drugs or meditation.

Also interesting that the author mentioned Emptiness. I couldn't help but be reminded of Zen throughout.

pensativo··on Applied Category Theory
I don't have any papers on this hard drive but databases, grammar formalisms and generally many data structures (you might know about monads, comonads, arrows, zippers, etc.) If you start digging on hackage, you'll find many interesting data structures, many of which were derived categorically or at least algebraically (they often cite the papers that inspired their implementation.)

Obviously all the work can be done without category theory but since the mid-2000's I gather that many insights have been gained by exporing various categories and their relations.

Edit: I think one of the main benefits is efficiency. Even if one doesn't start from categorical formalisms, you can later use them to pare things down to what's absolutely necessary.

pensativo··on Applied Category Theory
Category theory is a formal semantics for (or alternative to, depending on one's perspective) type theory and thus functional programming. It's been widely used (for example, in Haskell, ML, Agda, Coq, Idris, etc) not only for formal foundations but to derive many "smaller" practical applications. Many of the creations from that domain have been useful in many other languages. Are you unaware of this and asking something else?

It's an extremely good fit and highly productive, to answer your question directly.

pensativo··on How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich (2013)
People already poited out that a) Sweden wasn't very poor in the first place b) didn't participate much in conflict during the time; and, most importantly c) technology was extremely influential in the sense that there was just more to go around.

I want to point out that I think (c) is by far the most important fact but that the post ignores; however, it also ignores lesser factors such as the widespread participation and effects of labor unions.

I see the post as grossly oversimplifying (by conveniently ignoring many other historical factors) while the last time I check, this is something that's still very much debated by modern economists.