These are just his favorites not everything he's read, and kudos to him for putting this out there. But I'm a little disappointed as the list is kind of heavily Euro-centric. Probably even just a couple decades ago this would be the norm but I think in 2019 a person of his calibre and intelligence could benefit a lot by broadening his reading tastes, and there are increasingly many excellent (non-european) authors to choose from to broaden one's perspectives. Not a criticism, just my observation.
This doesn't make it any less artificial or arbitrary. The marathon is a different beast from the mile and it doesn't make much sense to compare two different eras.
Well the first 4-minute mile was achieved in a similar manner and for some reason it is well known in the popular imagination. To be honest I think these arbitrary marks of achievement are all very artificial and more about good PR more than anything else. Personally I think the 2 hour marathon is slightly less arbitrary than the 4-minute mile but breaking it was only a matter of time.
Hadn't heard of vault or Algorand before, but woah, what a team of heavy hitters: Micali, Goldwasser, Andrew Lo, Kenneth Rogoff, Herlihy etc. basically a who's who in CS, Cryptography, Econ & finance. If any group will do crypto right then at least on paper it would look like this team
Haven spoken with a few friends of mine who are in the position to know better I guess I can answer part of my own question. Apparently if a law exists that is obviously broken it's usually because there are vested interests interested in keeping things that way. Since virtually every large tech company from Samsung to Facebook and now Cloudflare has had to fight patent trolls, the reason the system remains broken is probably that these companies themselves benefit from the current brokenness of the system and the benefits they get far outweigh the costs of fending off the occasional troll. It won't surprise me if these companies themselves sit on large portfolios of overly broad patents they never intend to use except to fend off competition or initiate their own patent litigation. OP sort of hints at this in another post on this thread.
I didn't understand this too. It read as if they reached a settlement with Blackbird and part of that settlement involved taking down Project Jengo. From the site:
"The larger bounty (up to $30,000) will be spread among those submitting substantial prior art which reads on any of the 34 other outstanding Blackbird patents or their 3 in-flight patent applications and could lead to the invalidation of these dubious patents"
Any reason why they're wrapping this up if this hasn't yet been achieved? (those patents are still active)
The case against trolls is so clear and obvious, why does it seem so difficult to craft legislation to prevent this? I imagine a simple addition to patent laws invalidating a patent if the holder does not commercialize it after a certain period should get rid of NPEs. Is it not that simple? Also do you know if there's anything like patent-troll insurance that covers legal fees in cases like this? If not, why not? It seems like this has been a problem for so long not only for small businesses but for major players (with vast amounts of resources and clout) that I'm baffled why the problem continues to exist. Is there something about the US legal system or business in general that my simplistic mind is not understanding?
Huh? Maybe the headline is content-free, but the tweet it links and reply tweet could be useful esp for someone on the fence about Rust, and not just because of the person replying
Long time? Days??
If you park in an unauthorized zone with "no-parking" signs it can literally take minutes (believe me I've had this happen). I've heard some towing companies actively patrol lots where there's likely to be plenty of infractions - they make money doing this you know. In fact this new service is an accurate reflection of the mindset of these companies. I bet we're going to be seeing a lot of this soon.
I don't think their original piece actually made a judgment, it just reported what everyone else initially thought was the case (correct me if I'm wrong ). Still I agree it's disappointing that they a news organization takes what you see on the internet at face value, like the rest of us
This is really fascinating. Had no idea just an HN comment can get you an invitation to write a NYT op-ed. Is this usual? Have you written for a newspaper before or do they randomly source semi-anonymous internet commenters for opinion pieces?
Unfortunately this happens a lot but I don't entirely blame the media companies. In the age of twitter and social media, some news moves fast and they have to decide quickly whether to publish something about a trending news item or wait to do proper reportage and lose valuable page-views to more sensationalistic outlets which they have to compete with. I've come to accept this is the new reality and not get too bummed about it as long as we still occasionally get the usual well reported long-form investigative pieces we're used to and that you only get from these outlets
>Failing that, I see it as a niche product that'd revolutionize the entertainment industries but doesn't change much outside of them.
Entertainment is certainly not niche by any definition. If VR replaces gaming consoles alone we're talking several Billion dollars. Let alone TV, Movie theaters, internet porn etc
You're really caught up on this commoner/non-commoner dynamic (from your other comments). Was it really that important? - many of the well known scientists of that time were 'commoners'.
I'm in awe of his skills and intelligence. Sounds like someone who knows how to work smarter. I would have taken that as a learning opportunity.
*edit: Getting a few down-votes on this one. I was being mildly sarcastic but on the other hand it takes some skill and smart thinking to pull this kind of thing off. Also in my experience, bull-shitting is a very valuable and necessary skill at work and in life in general. Arguably it gets you to a position where you can do work of actual substance and get recognition for it.
>I'm actually very interested in hearing concrete ideas of what the unintended consequences could be and their cost, from actual experts.
Not all unintended consequences can be predicted let alone have a cost attached to them. In fact by definition unintended consequences are those we cannot forsee or prepare for in any meaningful way. Of course virtually any action has some unintended consequences but I think what the naysayers are saying in this case is that with something as complicated and untested as this, there is potential for massively negative unpredictable outcomes (maybe a new invasive species, maybe aedes aegypti perform some as yet unknown ecological function and their loss would be massively detrimental in ways we can't as yet predict etc), and there's some justification for that from human experience. This was the entire premise for movies like Jurassic park
I would never think of banking with BOA after all their shenanigans during the financial crises. A couple years ago I moved all my accounts from another major bank (one that rhymes with 'shittybank') to an online-only bank to avoid just this kind of nonsense. I miss a few conveniences but haven't had any cause to regret it.
Well said. Those efficient killing tools patriotic people like GP want to invent end up in the hands of Taliban or Colombian drug lords or on both sides of a civil war between African warlords making the lives of ordinary civilians in such places incomparably worse. A few will also end up on the streets in America or in the hands of mass shooters, though this is more tightly controlled and less of a problem.
>What I'm saying in this thread is, the author seems to be incredibly myopic using his own limited experience as a way to judge others for judging.
This is quite a judgemental statement to make about someone who says he's been homeless for almost 20 years from someone who (I assume) has not been homeless before. Do you have less limited experience to make you less myopic? Also except we're reading different articles I don't know what you're talking about when you say the author is 'judging'. The article says homeless people don't always live on the street, have no education, do drugs or have no jobs, and you say "don't be judgemental, that's myopic". Does that really make any sense to you?
Don't forget auto-playing video that requires 4 clicks to close when you find the semi-hidden close button, like a pesky roach... and restarts every time you navigate to another page or revisit the page
I think stablecoins is where the cryptocurrency experiment is headed for the near & forseeable future. It's interesting to watch the experiment slowly give way to the reality of operating in the world at large. At least we still get some form of digital money. On another note, I think it's really concerning how much of a monopoly Coinbase is becoming in this space. They're probably the only corporate entity making any real (no-scam) money (in the US) and everyday they seem to be morphing into some kind of Goldman Sachs/Google/Microsoft hybrid of crypto-money.
One thing though, the internet was/is solid technology. Underneath the internet bubble was something that worked. Blockchain is promising technology but without solving the scaling issue it will always be just that.
It's been replaced by the Decentralized Web as the latest fad (also with the backing of Tim Berners Lee). Let's see how far this one goes as well (though I'm really rooting for it to succeed).