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plowman

8 karma · joined April 20, 2012

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plowman··on Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

  What we have here is rather someone ‘acting as if they were stupid’. It’s not just that they failed to apply the concept of betrayal, but that they literally didn’t think of it: it was effectively ‘offline’, due to emotional and other pressures. In this kind of case, agents possess the necessary intellectual tools but unwittingly lock them away. This marks an important contrast with dumbness – we can make ourselves stupid, but we don’t make ourselves dumb.
This is a good insight. Lots of stupidity is a lack of imagination rather than a lack of raw intelligence.

This is also an idea that Julia Galef illuminates in great detail in her book "The Scout Mindset." She describes this as the difference between "Scout Mindset", which attempts to figure out what is correct, and "Soldier Mindset", or "stupidity" the way this article describes it, which attempts to fight to confirm what one already believes to be true.

plowman··on Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps
Yes, you should wait, especially if you're looking for a 16" MacBook Pro.

The first batch of M1 macs were announced on Nov 10th, 2020, and the 16" MacBook Pro hasn't been refreshed with an M* chip yet, so that will probably happen soon. The article claims it will happen "early summer", but within the next 6 months is a pretty safe bet.

Here's a good guide on how long each specific Mac has gone without updating, with guesses on when it's a bad idea to buy now: https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro_16

plowman··on California Earthquakes Disrupted HF Propagation on West Coast
This reminds me of "Earthquake Weather" which I had never heard of until moving to the Bay Area. Some people who grew up here believe this is a real thing despite the total absence of evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_weather

plowman··on Dow Hits 20000 for First Time
This is why Hacker News needs a downvote button. This is a non-story. The DJIA is an average of 30 stocks. Even if it was possible to figure out causation of stock market movement, the DJIA would be a terrible indicator of stock market movement.

For more, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average

plowman··on Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners told to turn off device
So basically a recall without the hassle of having to replace all of these phones?
plowman··on Higher Taxes Don’t Cause Millionaires to Flee Their Homes
The author of this article has clearly not played much SimCity.
plowman··on AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep
On the brain.fm they list results, but they are super flimsy. For focus, for example, n=17, and the difference between music vs non-music is much smaller than the standard deviation of either group.

So it's possible this stuff helps you focus, but it doesn't appear to be showing up on these studies.

plowman··on Ning Security Hole Discovered By Hackers - Millions of Accounts Compromised
I work at Ning. I can confirm this hole was recently patched.